Class 




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Book_ 



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7 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSITS 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 



IHKO .EG 






From School 
Through College 



By 
HENRY PARKS WRIGHT 



Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam, 
rectique cultus pectora roborant, 
—Horace. 




New Haven: Yale University Press 

London : Henry Frowde 

Oxford University Press 

MCMXI 






V 



n^ 



Copyright, 1911, 

BY 

Yale University Press 



First printed September, 1911, 1000 copies 






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TO THE MEMORY OF 
ALFRED PARKS WRIGHT 

1880-1901 



CONTENTS 









PAGE 




Preface 


• 


ix 


I. 


Opportunities 


. 


3 


II. 


The Main Purpose 


• 


29 


III. 


Health, Recreation, and Exercise 


55 


IV. 


Self-Discipline . 


• 


73 


V. 


Courage and Honor . 


. 


95 


VI. 


Among Classmates 


• 


115 


VII. 


Planning for the Future 


. 


. 137 



PREFACE 

The thought of writing a small book for 
college students first came to me when I was 
invited to address the graduating class of the 
Hotchkiss School. It was evident that there 
was no more important subject for young men 
just passing from school to college than the 
right use of the years of study immediately 
before them, and the address took the form of 
suggestions such as would have helped me at 
the beginning of my Freshman year. That 
address was the basis of the present volume. 

The college offers such large opportunities 
in the way of a preparation for life that it is 
a pity that any one who can have them should 
miss them, or that those who have them should 
fail to get their full benefit. I have spent all 
my active life in work with students, and during 
twenty-five years in the Dean's Office of Yale 
College a very pleasant part of my service was 
to give friendly counsel to hundreds of young 
men who came to me with their difficulties, 
ambitions, sorrows, and temptations. The 
suggestions in this book have therefore grown 
out of personal observation of student life, and 
they have this to commend them, — ^that they 
[ix] 



PREFACE 

have been tested, and in some cases at least have 
been found helpful. 

My plan of life for a college student is : Enter 
well prepared so that there will be time for 
something more than class-room duties. Make 
study the chief, but not the only purpose. 
Take care of the health, and do the college 
work so as to go out with sound mental train- 
ing and strong character. Get what you can 
of the incidental advantages and of the enjoy- 
ment which college offers, but never to the 
neglect of the college studies. 

New Haven, Conn. 
July 7, 1911. 



[X] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 



OPPORTUNITIES 



The noblest sight this world affords is a young man 
bent upon making the most of himself. — T. T, Munger, 

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. 

— Emerson, 

A life without a prevailing enthusiasm is sure not to 
rise to its highest level. — President Eliot. 

Education is the only interest worthy the deep, con- 
trolling anxiety of the thoughtful man. 

— Wendell Phillips, 

The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigor 
from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a 
perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure. 

— Gibbon, 

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to 
hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of 
a scholar. — Samuel Johnson, 

The heights by great men reached and kept 
Were not attained by sudden flight. 

But they, while their companions slept. 
Were toiling upward in the night. 

— Longfellow, 



I 

OPPORTUNITIES 

There is no time in a student's life when he is 
more likely to need good counsel than on the 
day when he enters college. He has left the 
restraints of home and of the school behind, 
and is at the beginning of what may be made 
the best and happiest four years that he will 
ever know. He is at that age when it is a 
pleasure to live, when the future is bright, and 
most experiences are new. He feels conscious 
of strength and quite sure of being able to 
accomplish anything which he sets out to do. 
Impatient of suggestion from those who have 
gone before him, he is too ready to take advice 
from companions with as little experience as 
himself. How much these four years might do 
for him if he could get at the beginning of 
Freshman year the view of the proper relation 
of things which most men have when they 
graduate ! 

I was older, when admitted to college, than 
the average of my class at graduation, and 
should have been guilty of unpardonable folly, 
therefore, if I had not kept pretty constantly 
in mind the purpose for which I came; but. 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

though necessity compelled me to work my way 
in part, I knew all my classmates well, formed 
many life-long friendships, and had time for 
religious work, for social activities, and for 
recreation. Since then, I have spent forty 
years in somewhat intimate relations with the 
undergraduates of a large college, and have 
observed those among them who have won 
success and those who have met failure, as well 
as those who have gained something from 
college, but ought to have gained more. My 
sympathies are with the student in all that 
rightly interests him, outside the class-room 
or within it. I do not wish to see him enjoy 
college life less, but I have an earnest desire 
to help him make a wise use of opportunities 
such as will never come to him again. 

The majority of students in the high schools 
do not continue their studies beyond what they 
think necessary for business. Whether one 
should go on and prepare for the university 
depends on his ability, his ambitions, and his 
circumstances. Ought he to be contented with 
what education he has, as long as he has it in 
his power to obtain more? This question can- 
not be wisely answered without advice based 
on experience and knowledge. The temptation 
everywhere is to be satisfied with present con- 

[4] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

ditions, when often we ought not to be satisfied 
with them. The judgment of those who know 
should outweigh one's personal preferences or 
the wishes of parents and friends. 

When I first entered Phillips Academy at 
Andover, I spent several unhappy days in a 
cheerless room in the Latin Commons, in peni- 
tence over my decision. It seemed to me then 
that I had made a great mistake in giving up 
a place where I was getting twenty dollars a 
month, only to waste time in learning the Latin 
grammar. Working ten and a half hours a 
day, with pleasant companions, to produce 
something that other people needed, looked to 
me like a better occupation for a young man 
with some mechanical ability than spending 
morning, afternoon and evening in acquiring 
knowledge of a subject that had no practical 
value. I was considered a good workman, and 
felt sure of steady employment. I had begun 
to have visions of the time when I might become 
a member of some firm, with leisure to devote 
to country politics, when I might hold town 
offices, and perhaps sometime be chosen to repre- 
sent the district in the legislature of the state. 
That was the not unworthy ambition of a boy 
who had hardly been outside the limits of the 
little town in which he had been brought up. 

[5] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

As I look back over the intervening half cen- 
tury, I am not now sorry that some influence 
came into my life to send me away from home 
and into a new environment. 

If we can do so, is it not worth while to live 
for a few years amid traditions that have stood 
the test of time, to be under good instructors, 
and to have for our associates some of the 
choicest young men of the country? Can we 
live in such company and amid such surround- 
ings without being better for it? College is a 
good place in which to correct disagreeable 
habits, and to discover and wear off the rough- 
nesses that annoy our friends. Conceit, selfish- 
ness, rudeness, and other unworthy traits so 
common in youth, will be taken out of us by 
Faculty and by classmates, unless we belong 
with those of whom Solomon would have no 
hope, even though they be brayed in a mortar. 
The few years spent in college will enable a 
young man to get a correct estimate of his 
own ability. How is he to know himself until 
he has had a chance to take his measure by 
coming into competition in many ways with 
other young men ? If he rates himself too high 
or too low, the truth will be revealed to him 
here. In the days when scholarship was the 
object of a student's ambition, there were 

[6] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

probably men in every class who came expect- 
ing in due time to wear a Phi Beta Kappa key, 
but whose names were found in the lowest 
division when the class was arranged according 
to scholarship. There are many examples, 
also, where, under the stimulus of good instruc- 
tion, unexpected ability has been discovered, 
perhaps in some special branch, and a good or 
even high scholar has been developed out of one 
who never gave evidence of superiority in the 
school. It often happens that one becomes a 
specialist in a field wholly unknown to him 
before he entered college. 

A liberal education is a good investment for 
any young man who desires it, if he has the 
health, the ability, and the means to obtain it, 
no matter what occupation he may afterward 
choose. It should give him a clearer view of 
the purpose of life, a higher ideal of manhood, 
a broader culture, a better social standing, a 
love of books, and a capacity to appreciate the 
best things. But college is no place for one 
who is a stranger to moral principles, or who 
is constitutionally lazy, or who has a positive 
dislike for mental effort. If he cannot, or will 
not, get interested in his studies, it is the part 
of wisdom to turn to some other occupation. 
There is not only no profit, but there is no real 

[7] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

pleasure in the college life where there is not 
the consciousness of increasing mental attain- 
ment. 

It costs a good sum to go to college, and it 
takes four valuable years of a life which is short 
at best. But if you are fond of study, and have 
shown in the school good natural ability, and 
if you have the ambition and purpose to be a 
man of influence among men and to do some- 
thing more than work under the supervision of 
others, a thorough college training ought to 
help you. If you enter a profession by a short 
course, you will soon be aware that the greater 
part of your professional brethren are college- 
trained men, and with these you can hardly 
expect to compete on equal terms. If without 
further education you turn toward business, you 
may find by and by, if you ever become an appli- 
cant for some high position, that among the 
other applicants are college men with business 
experience, whose mental training has been 
better than yours, and that one of these is more 
likely to get the place. It is of course possible 
that you may get some special training in busi- 
ness which will give you an advantage over the 
college man, but the probability is that you will 
not. 

A very successful high school teacher once 

[8] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

expressed to me the opinion that where the 
public schools furnish preparation for college 
without cost to the parent, many boys of only 
average ability and in limited circumstances are 
encouraged to go to college, who can never 
succeed in any of the professions for which this 
training is supposed to be a preparation. 
There are, it is true, graduates who never get 
a pecuniary return from their college educa- 
tion sufficient to justify its cost to themselves 
and their parents; but is not this, in most 
cases, because they are ambitious to obtain 
positions which they have not the ability to 
fill? When all professions are crowded, not 
every man with a bachelor's degree can expect 
to secure a large number of clients or patients, 
or to receive a call to a wealthy church or an 
appointment as teacher on a high salary. It 
is not likely, however, that any earnest boy of 
good ability will make a mistake in getting as 
much education as his circumstances will allow. 
If the college graduate is willing to take hold 
of any kind of work for which he is adapted, 
there is no reason why he should not do it 
better than he would have done if he had fin- 
ished his book education when he left the high 
school; and he ought to have, all his life long, 
the higher enjoyment which comes from years 

[9] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

spent in the development of powers which would 
otherwise have remained dormant. He may 
have less success as a money-getter, but the 
object of a college is not to fit its graduates 
to earn large salaries. 

The ambition of fathers to have their sons' 
social position better than their own often 
brings boys to college who have little fondness 
for intellectual pursuits, and no desire to get 
anything out of college except a good time and 
a diploma. I would not say that such sons 
ought not to come, if they can meet the require- 
ments for admission. Many of them, to be 
sure, make only a short stay, but some, perhaps 
one half, continue and are graduated. If they 
can be trained to habits of regularity, and can 
be made to do work thorough enough to keep 
a safe standing, they will be much better men 
for the experience ; and the probability is that 
before they reach the end of the course, the 
spirit of the place will possess some of them 
and give them an ambition to do something in 
the world worthy of their opportunities. 

It is entirely correct to say that no youth is 
old enough to leave home safely till he has been 
thoroughly grounded in right principles. Some 
are never old enough to be trusted away from 
home. They will not, when fifty, have the 
[10] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

strength of character sufficient to go without 
a guardian in the midst of temptation. But 
the youth who has been well brought up, and 
who has a serious purpose, will find at college 
the influences that will develop the good that 
there is in him. If he is to leave home and live 
among others of his age, I know of no place 
where there are more safeguards against temp- 
tation and where the influences are better. 

A young man who is ambitious for higher 
education need not lose heart because his means 
are limited. In almost all colleges there are 
tuition scholarships for those who need them, 
and show themselves worthy, and prizes for 
those who have the ability to win them. If one 
is in real need, he should not hesitate to explain 
his circumstances fully to his class officer or to 
the person in charge of the beneficiary funds; 
but it is not desirable for him to make direct 
application for one of the larger undergraduate 
scholarships which are assigned by the Faculty 
for special excellence of character and attain- 
ment. The fact that he thinks himself worthy 
of it might itself be taken as evidence that he is 
not quite the man whom the donor had in mind. 

A student who is willing to do any kind of 
work that is honorable can generally find ways 
of earning money. He may not be able to see 

[11] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

his way clearly for many weeks ahead, but if 
he is made of the right stuff, it is not likely 
that he will have to leave on account of lack 
of means. Such men are often the ones who 
come out strongest in the end. They have so 
much more to do than their classmates that 
they learn to economize their time and to work 
rapidly. As I have watched the development 
in mind and character of those who have been 
self-supporting, I have often said: "Blessed is 
the student who has to work his way, who 
knows the value of money from his own expe- 
rience, and who appreciates his opportunities 
because he knows what they cost.'' I do not 
think a man is less esteemed by his classmates 
because he is self-supporting, or that he has 
less chance of social recognition than he would 
have with a modest allowance from home. An 
election to a fraternity is not really an honor 
unless it comes unsought. If you fail to 
receive honors of this kind because you have 
not had time to know your class and be known 
by them, do not think your college life a failure. 
You have gained by your hard experience what 
may be worth more to you in the years to come. 
A young man who earns his way in college, 
wholly or in part, gets a kind of practical 
business training which will be valuable to him 
[12] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

later, whatever his vocation may be. But to 
do full college work, and at the same time earn 
enough to pay one's whole expenses, is ordi- 
narily too great a tax on health and is not to 
be recommended. 

You do not need to be told that success in 
college depends much on good preparation. 
You go to your school to prepare for the 
examination which assures you the certificate 
of admission. Throughout all the school years 
you have always this definite end in view. 
Whatever else your teachers may do for you 
(and they ought to do much besides), you 
expect them to prepare you to meet any test 
set by any examiners. It is best, therefore, to 
go to a school where the discipline is severe and 
the moral standard high. But you must be 
honest with yourself, and not try to shine with 
borrowed light. It is vastly more important 
that you should learn how to study, and that 
you should abstain from the use of all helps, 
than that you should take a high rank in the 
school. You must learn how to take hold of a 
piece of work at the right end. You must 
become accurate in your statements and be able 
to retain in mind, and have at command, the 
knowledge that you will need in your tests for 
admission to the higher institution. A vague 
[13] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

idea that you once knew something about a 
subject will not help you more in an examina- 
tion for admission than it would in the practice 
of your profession. In answer to a question of 
Professor James Hadley relating to a certain 
period of Greek history, a candidate for admis- 
sion to Yale once made substantially this reply : 
"I remember that somebody did something 
during that period, but I cannot recall who it 
was, or when it was, and I have also forgotten 
what he did and where he did it.'' 

If you have ability and the advantages of a 
good school, you should be prepared to enter 
college when about seventeen. For one who 
wishes to get the most out of his college life, it 
is generally unwise to begin it earlier. But if 
you are kept back by unfavorable circum- 
stances, it is better to enter several years later 
than to come poorly prepared. 

It is unwise to enter college with deficient 
preparation. This is often attempted, for the 
sake of economy, by students who are under 
the necessity of earning money with which to 
pay their college expenses, but these are the 
very ones who cannot afford to run the risk. 
Suppose such a student, for some urgent reason, 
were allowed to enter the Freshman class with 
a year's deficiency. He must during Fresh- 
[14] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

man year do practically three years' work in 
one. He has, first, the regular studies of 
Freshman year to complete; second, the year's 
deficiency in preparation to make up; and, 
third, in addition, the task of supporting him- 
self. Any one of these is all that is expected 
of a young man of his age, who does nothing 
else. This unreasonable burden keeps him from 
taking a creditable rank in scholarship, allows 
him no time to become acquainted with his 
classmates or for outside activities, and is very 
likely to leave him with impaired health, though 
the results of over-work may not immediately 
appear. In addition, there is the strong proba- 
bility that he will have to take, after all, an 
extra year of college work in order to get his 
degree. There are indeed cases of men some- 
what mature, who have entered seriously defi- 
cient in preparation and have nevertheless made 
creditable records. The regularity and indus- 
try necessary for them at the beginning of the 
college course became fixed habits, and they 
grew steadily in strength from year to year. 
But these are not to be taken as examples by 
younger men who have had better advantages. 
For one with many deficiencies, it is better on 
all accounts to wait and enter a year or more 
later, well prepared. 

[15] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

An added year often makes a great change 
in a young man's ability to do intellectual 
work. Many years ago, when no one was 
allowed to join the Freshman class in Yale 
College till all conditions were made up, I 
repeatedly examined a candidate who seemed 
to me extremely dull. Regularly every Sat- 
urday for many weeks he came to my room to 
go through the form of an examination. I felt 
so sure that if he ever got in, he could not stay 
more than one term, that I was several times 
on the point of urging him to give up the 
attempt and go home, but decided that the 
responsibility was with him and with his father. 
He finally removed his deficiencies, but so late 
in the season that he stayed out and entered 
the Freshman class at the beginning of the 
next college year. Then he disappointed me 
altogether. He developed slowly, but soon did 
quite satisfactorily in his daily recitations and 
still better in the term examination. Instead 
of being dropped at the end of the first term, 
as I had predicted, he had a fairly good grade 
in all of his studies. That unpromising candi- 
date became a Phi Beta Kappa man, and an 
officer of his class, and was socially prominent. 

Unless one expects to save a year in college, 
it is generally a waste of time to come over- 
[16] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

prepared. When he is fully ready to enter, 
why should he take another year in school? 
The result often is that he finds the work of the 
extra school year too easy and forms loose 
habits of study, of which it will be hard for 
him to rid himself in the years which follow. 
If a young man in good health, and old enough 
to enter, has a year to spare, it can be used to 
much better advantage after graduation, in 
general culture, travel, or extra work in the 
professional school. 

Little need be said about the choice of a col- 
lege. If the father is a college man, it adds to 
the enjoyment of both to have the son follow 
in his father's footsteps. I have never been 
sorry that I was guided by the advice of my 
pastor, who said that a boy brought up in the 
country should go to a city college, and that 
a boy brought up in the city should go to a 
college in a country town. Large colleges and 
small both have their advantages. While a 
bright boy in a small college does not gain as 
much by measuring himself with others, all or 
most of whom are his inferiors, the competition 
in a large college may dishearten a boy of only 
average ability, and he may lose his ambition. 
If the college is small, you will have a better 
chance for leadership and for social recogni- 
[17] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

tion ; if it is large, you will be less limited in 
your choice of associates and friends, because 
there are so many to choose from, but you may 
not make a wise use of these opportunities. I 
may be wrong, but I do not believe that, unless 
the college is unusually small, there is any pref- 
erence for one over the other on the ground 
of close relations between Faculty and students ; 
that depends mainly on the spirit of the men 
who teach and the attitude of individual stu- 
dents toward the Faculty. As you can go 
through college but once, it is wise to choose 
the institution which will give you the best prep- 
aration for life. When you are a graduate, 
you will, of course, be loyal to the college of 
your choice, but you will take greater satisfac- 
tion if that is one which has a world-wide 
reputation, and there are manifest advantages 
in being connected with a college that has a 
large body of alumni. One should give up the 
idea, if he ever had it, that attendance at any 
college is going to fit him for life, as a tailor 
fits him with a suit of clothes. Let him get all 
he can from teachers, from good companion- 
ship, and from the traditions of the place; 
these are valuable helps, but they are helps 
only. The real good comes from the work he 
does himself. Many who have educated them- 
[18] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

selves without the help of schools and colleges 
have proved well-fitted to hold the most respons- 
ible positions. Every educated man is self- 
educated. There are few colleges so poor that 
an earnest student cannot find in them oppor- 
tunity for sound mental training, and none so 
good that a man without purpose cannot abuse 
its privileges and make a complete failure. 

It is a long step from the Senior class in 
school to the Freshman class in college. With 
excusable pride, you will look a great many 
times at your name in the catalogue of the col- 
lege which has been honored and loved by so 
many generations of educated men, and with 
some feeling of humility you will be often 
reminded that there is no class in the whole 
institution lower than your own. The advance- 
ment brings with it much responsibility. In the 
school, your teachers have decided for you what 
subjects you should pursue, and have taught 
you how to study. If you have come from a 
good school, they have looked after your health 
and physical development, have wisely sur- 
rounded you with safeguards against tempta- 
tions to idleness and dishonesty, and have 
taught you how to lay the foundations of an 
upright character. They have made it their 
aim so to guide you that you should be self- 
[19] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

dependent when you are no longer in their care. 
In college, you will have a degree of freedom 
from supervision which you have not yet 
known. It will be assumed that you are a man. 
The responsibility of deciding many important 
questions will fall mainly upon you. The col- 
lege will advise you, as the school has hereto- 
fore done, but it will not, and ought not to, 
decide your questions for you. Your own 
development as a strong and independent man 
requires that you be self-reliant, use your own 
judgment, and make your own choices. You 
will have to meet your engagements regularly 
and promptly, and must do well the amount of 
work required of you; but the college will not 
dictate to you how to divide your time between 
study and recreation, or how to occupy the 
time not needed for strictly college work. You 
will be held responsible for the faithful per- 
formance of your duties as a student; but, as 
long as you do not neglect these, if you conduct 
yourself as a worthy member of the community, 
you will have as much freedom as any good 
citizen has. 

Do not undervalue the advantage of coming 

under the personal influence of the men that 

make up the Faculty. They have been selected 

for their positions with great care, some because 

[20] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

of their skill in scientific investigation, some 
because of special qualifications as instructors, 
but all because of their ability to train young 
men in the process of education. It will be one 
of your great privileges to know them and feel 
the inspiration of their personaUty. If you are 
a good student, you will before you graduate 
count some of your instructors among your 
best friends, and their friendly interest in you 
will continue long after the close of your stu- 
dent days. I do not know any class of men, 
anywhere, in whose sincerity and integrity 
and fitness for their positions I have more 
confidence. 

The Faculty are, like the weather, subject 
to much unfavorable and unjust criticism. 
Fathers generally seem to think that the fault 
is with the Faculty if their sons form bad habits 
or fail in their studies. If the college loses in 
debate, the Faculty are criticized by the public 
for poor instruction; if it loses in baseball and 
football, they are criticized by the students 
and the alumni for lack of sympathy with ath- 
letics. It seems to be student nature to blame 
the Faculty when anything goes wrong with 
the college. The most of us think we can do 
another man's business better than he does it, 
and he probably thinks the same regarding us ; 
[21] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

but it is reasonable to suppose that men who 
are devoting their lives to the study of educa- 
tional problems should understand better how 
to manage an institution of learning than those 
who are only undergraduate students in the 
institution. When tempted to say hard things 
about your instructors, stop a moment and 
think how much they have to put up with in 
you. Loyalty to the college should lead the 
student to co-operate heartily with the Faculty 
for the common good. Courtesy, as well as 
duty, demands that he submit cheerfully to 
their authority. Whatever he may think of 
their rules, it is his place to obey them. He 
promised this when he was received into the fel- 
lowship of the college, and the only honorable 
course is to live up to the promise in a manly 
way, or withdraw quietly and go to some other 
institution. 

The first year in college generally determines 
the character of one's whole course. If you 
could look up the early history of graduates 
who have attained distinction in their profes- 
sions or in public life, you would find that they 
were mostly men of regular habits, and con- 
scientious, diligent students in Freshman year. 
They may not have shown unusual ability at 
first, but they were honorable men and hard 
[22] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

workers. Bad habits of study in Freshman 
year are seldom overcome, and a false standard 
of morals then is likely to be maintained to the 
end; if it is not, it will give one a reputation 
which it is hard to live down. 

There are about six hundred universities, col- 
leges, and schools of technology in the United 
States, that offer their privileges to any young 
man, without regard to creed, race, or color, 
who can satisfy the requirements for admission. 
The greater part of these have been founded 
and built up by gifts from private individuals ; 
some have been established by state authority. 
The endowment and equipment represent a vast 
amount of capital; yet in state institutions 
instruction is given to the children of the state 
without payment of tuition, and in most others, 
expenses are made light for those who are with- 
out means. Even where full tuition is paid, it 
does not cover more than one-half of the actual 
cost of the student's instruction. Why are 
these opportunities offered so freely to all who 
are qualified to make use of them.'^ The pur- 
pose is to train young men in mind and char- 
acter for public service and for good citizen- 
ship, that their lives may be a contribution to 
the general welfare. 

Talking one day with a graduate about the 
[23] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

Chinese students in American colleges, T called 
his attention especially to their excellent schol- 
arship. He said : "But you must remember that 
the Chinese students are all picked men"; to 
which I replied with the question: "Are not all 
college students picked men?'' There are not 
less than seven millions of young men in the 
United States between the ages of seventeen 
and twenty-four. What a small part of these 
have the advantages which you are enjoying! 
You have been selected for this great privilege, 
first, by inheritance. Perhaps it was your 
fortune to be born in a family that could afford 
to send you to a good school and then to supply 
your wants in college. Perhaps, instead of 
wealth, you have inherited, what is far better, 
the indomitable spirit which will help you to 
make your way anywhere. If you are already 
in college, you have been selected also by the 
tests through which you have passed in the 
school and in the examination for admission, 
by which at least one-half of those who seek to 
enter are left somewhere by the wayside. Much, 
therefore, ought to be expected of you. You 
have no right to use for selfish ends these oppor- 
tunities, that persons unknown to you have sup- 
plied and which the vast majority of young men 
cannot have. You are, in a certain sense, a 
[24] 



OPPORTUNITIES 

representative of the public, chosen from among 
the young men of the country, that you may 
be prepared, in great part at the expense of 
others, for some service which you are to 
render to your fellow men. 



[25J 



n 

THE MAIN PURPOSE 



A real education must be based on a serious, consecu- 
tive, progressive study of something definite, teachable, 
and hard. — Paul 8horey. 

Thinking is learned by thinking. — President Thwing, 

Providence has nothing good or high in store for one 
who does not resolutely aim at something high and good. 
A purpose is the eternal condition of success. 

—T. T. Munger. 

The men who leave their mark upon the world are 
men who, when it comes to a real conflict between pur- 
pose and pleasure, care more for the former than for the 
latter. — President Hadley. 

Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a 
distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. — Carlyle, 

The rising generation should think hard and feel 
keenly just where the men and women who constitute 
the actual human world are thinking and feeling most 
today. — President Eliot, 

He only is a well-made man who has a good determi- 
nation. — Emerson, 

Books are lifelong friends, whom we come to love and 
know as we do our children. — S. L. Boardman, 



II 

THE MAIN PURPOSE 

When, at the close of the Senior year, you 
look back upon your college days, you will 
appreciate the advantages that have come to 
you from the social life of the college and from 
the part you have taken in athletics or in any 
other outside activities. But nothing will then 
gratify you so much as a consciousness of intel- 
lectual growth and the knowledge that you can 
do more and better work than you could have 
done four years earlier. If you find that you 
have made little or no intellectual progress, you 
will then appreciate the loss, your regret will 
be sincere, and will increase with the passing 
years. Much as there is that is valuable out- 
side the class-room, the real object of your 
going to college is to study, to come under 
the intellectual stimulus of the scholars and 
teachers that make up the Faculty, and to get 
the mental training and culture that result 
from doing what they require. 

Men fail in college, as elsewhere, who do not 
have before them a definite plan. Where there 
is no plan, there is no incentive to achievement 
[29] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

and little is accomplished. The first question, 
then, is. What have you come to college for? 
Your present ambition as a student is perhaps 
to rank high in scholarship and wear a Phi Beta 
Kappa key, or to win a place on the editorial 
board of some college publication, or to become 
qualified to represent the college in debate; 
these aims are all highly commendable, but none 
of them should be considered an end in itself. 
If your main purpose is for college success only, 
then you may not be getting the most possible 
from your opportunities. There ought to be 
back of all a plan of life, a settled purpose 
which looks out into the future, to keep you 
strong and steady, and enable you to see things 
in their right light. The important considera- 
tion is, not how you stand with the Faculty or 
with your fellows, though you ought to stand 
well with both, but rather how you will stand 
in your profession twenty years hence; and, 
as far as mental equipment goes, that will 
depend less on your published grade of scholar- 
ship, or the honors which you take in college, 
than on your methods of study. It is better 
not to win scholarship honors than to win them 
by selecting your courses and preparing your 
lessons solely with that end in view. It is better 
not to make the debating team than to make it 
[30J 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

by getting some one else to do your thinking 
for you. 

For the four years in college your aim should 
be to come to the close of the college course 
prepared to take up the work which will await 
you, with strong confidence in your ability to 
do it well. In all your plans during this period, 
that is the main purpose to keep in view. To 
gain this end, you will need to go out from col- 
lege with a well-disciplined mind, a body 
capable of much endurance, and a character in 
which the world puts faith. 
' The chief object of a college education is 
not to store the mind with knowledge. It is 
quite possible for a man to have a great deal 
of information, without the ability to make 
use of it. A mind full of facts, but untrained, 
has been compared to a house into which the 
furniture of half a village has been thrown on 
an alarm of fire. In its crowded and disordered 
condition, it is of as little use to the owner as 
if it were empty. The amount of knowledge 
on every important subject is so great that it 
would be impossible for the mind to retain it, 
and a waste of energy to try to retain it even 
if it were possible. To be well equipped in his 
profession, a man must know where to go for 
any material in his special line which it becomes 
[31] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

necessary for him to have, and he must know 
also how to make use of it. If he has at com- 
mand only what he retains in mind, he is out 
of the race, in competition with one trained to 
a right use of his materials. 

Many years ago, when an examination in 
geography was required for admission to Yale, 
and when American boys knew less about the 
Philippines than they know now, a candidate 
found this question on his paper: "Through 
what bodies of water would you sail in going 
from London to Manila?" He wrote: "I would 
sail down to the Straits of Gibraltar, enter the 
Mediterranean, go through the Suez Canal into 
the Red Sea, and then — inquire." He did not 
know enough to satisfy the examiner, but he 
had as much knowledge of the subject as would 
be needed for almost any other purpose. There 
are plenty of books and maps in the world, and 
it is not necessary for one who has no present 
intention of going outside the limits of his 
native country to burden his mind with all the 
details of all possible voyages which could be 
made to the ends of the earth. The necessary 
thing is that he should know how to get the 
information when he needs it. Except for edu- 
cational or other special purposes, it is foolish 
to attempt to fill the mind with material that 
[33] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

can easily be obtained from books of reference. 
Secretary Bayard, noticing the kind of ques- 
tions set for a civil service examination, 
remarked that he should not wish to have in his 
office a man who knew the population of all the 
countries of Europe. 

I would not underestimate the value of the 
knowledge that may be gained in the class- 
room. One cannot devote four years of his 
early manhood to an intelligent pursuit of the 
subjects now offered in the course of study of 
an American college without acquiring inci- 
dentally a great deal of information that may 
be valuable in after life. Whatever seems to 
him likely to prove valuable, either later in col- 
lege or in the years that follow, he should aim 
to store up ; and, as the mind unaided will retain 
but a small part of what it receives, it is impor- 
tant that he learn how to arrange his material, 
by the employment of modern devices, so that 
he can readily refer to it, should occasion 
require. He may not have as much occasion 
as he now supposes to use the knowledge here 
gained, but he should learn how to arrange it 
systematically, expecting to make use of it. 

But the important object before you in col- 
lege is mental training. You should select 
your courses with so much care, and do your 
[33] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

work in such a way that when you graduate 
you will know how to take up intelligently any 
new subject and readily master it. When you 
have acquired this power, you may rightly be 
called educated, whether you obtained the edu- 
cation in a university or in the training of prac- 
tical experience. 

At the present day, the college student is 
called upon to select a part or all of his courses, 
generally with important limitations in the ear- 
lier years. Some institutions wisely arrange 
the studies in groups, all the subjects in each 
group being fixed. If it were possible to group 
the studies so that each student could be 
required to take what he needs, this would be 
better for him than freedom of choice among 
many courses. When he selects his own courses 
with but little restriction, the temptation is 
often too great to take those that are easy, 
or that furnish information and entertainment 
only; and even when he desires to get the 
courses that are best for him, without regard 
to their difficulty, and has a general idea of 
what he needs, it is by no means easy for him 
to make a wise selection. He knows to some 
extent what he may gain by continuing sub- 
jects already begun, but of the value of those 
new to him he is in a poor condition to judge. 
[34] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

Of the methods employed in them he generally 
knows only what other students tell him. The 
number of courses open to him is often large, 
and from the many which he wishes, he can 
select only a few. He is limited, also, in his 
choice by the schedule of recitations, on which 
he often finds that two or more courses which 
he wishes to take come at the same hour. The 
result is that many delay their selection till the 
last day allowed, and then make up the list, 
influenced by what their companions have 
taken. This is not worthy of being called a 
choice, and is likely to be followed by a desire 
for change as soon as the list has been handed 
in. 

To learn to decide important questions 
wisely is part of a young man's education. He 
will make mistakes at first, and these will teach 
him caution; but the need of caution will not 
be properly impressed upon him if he is not 
required to adhere to his decisions. When a 
student is allowed to select his studies, he ought 
to feel responsible for the choice after it is 
made, and under obligation to justify it by 
showing an interest in the studies which he has 
selected. If he finds a course more difficult 
than he expected, he should put forth more 
effort. To think of giving it up because it is 
[35] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

difficult, or because he does not like it, will 
weaken the will power; to stick to it, with a 
determination to succeed, will make a stronger 
man. It will be worth a great deal to any one 
to learn early not to make a decision till he 
has taken time to convince himself that it is 
wise, and to feel bound by the decision when 
it is made, though to do so may involve per- 
sonal hardship. If this becomes his practice, 
men will know just where he stands. 

You should select your courses so as to get 
a good all-round education, with a broad and 
solid foundation of academical studies on which 
to build your future work. Under the old 
system of required courses, the Faculty con- 
structed the curriculum mostly of subjects 
which they considered best for mental disci- 
pline, and the colleges turned out strong men. 
In the choice of studies you should select those 
that require a reasonable amount of hard work. 
Too easy courses waste one's time, and a very 
difficult schedule may demand more than it is 
wise for a student under twenty to undertake. 
If I were to make up your schedule for you, I 
should select for the first two years studies that 
have much disciplinary value, as mathematics, 
science, and the ancient and modern languages, 
and leave the so-called culture studies for the 
[36] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

two final years. You will be much better quali- 
fied to appreciate and enjoy these maturer 
studies in Junior and Senior years, and you 
need the discipline of the languages and the 
more exact sciences first. In general, no one 
ought to graduate from college without a good 
knowledge of English, Latin, mathematics, 
French, German, history, political science, 
philosophy, and some of the physical and nat- 
ural sciences. What I learned in physics and 
astronomy has contributed to my life so much 
that has been helpful and interesting that I 
cannot think of a college course as complete 
without them. I had also a great deal of 
Greek and Latin. It seems to me worth while 
for the student of good ability to spend time 
in the study of these two ancient civilizations, 
from which we have derived the highest ideals 
in art and literature, and the foundations of 
law and government. Greek and Latin have 
been taught so long and so well that, in the 
best schools, a boy can get a more thorough 
preparation for college in them than in most 
other subjects. The translation of the best 
works in these languages into good idiomatic 
prose affords excellent training in English, 
and the constant practice of weighing different 
views and interpretations, each of which may 
[37] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

be defended, and of choosing the one which 
seems best, improves the judgment. The study 
of Greek and Latin is the best preparation for 
many other subjects taken up in college or in 
the professional and graduate schools. But the 
advantage of the study of the ancient lan- 
guages, or indeed of any language or of any 
subject, is lost in great measure when one 
begins to use helps in preparing for recitations 
and examinations. 

There are some men on the Faculty whose 
instruction you will want, no matter what 
courses they offer. The personal influence of 
the man back of the course, and his methods, 
will be worth so much that no substitute wiU 
quite compensate for their loss. Between two 
courses that seem equally desirable, it is better 
to select one that, because it requires the aid 
of instructor or laboratory, must be taken in 
college or not at all, in preference to the one 
which you can read up outside. 

The Faculty will no doubt see to it that at 
the beginning of each year some of your courses 
naturally follow those already taken, so that a 
due proportion of your studies may be con- 
secutive and progressive. Otherwise you might 
spend too much time on work that is purely 
elementary, and get a thorough training in 
[38] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

nothing. A student should have one subject 
in which he does the best work of which he is 
capable, not limiting his attainments in it by 
what his instructors demand, but learning, as 
far as is possible for him, all there is to be 
known about it, making it a favorite pursuit 
and keeping up his interest in it after leaving 
college. If it is something entirely outside his 
profession, it may continue to be a helpful 
stimulus, as well as a pleasant mental recrea- 
tion, all through life. Every man needs some 
such avocation to call his thoughts away from 
his regular duties, and he will get more satis- 
faction from it if the foundations have been 
laid in college, under the guidance of an enthu- 
siastic teacher. 

An early choice of one's profession will help 
a student somewhat in the selection of his 
courses for Junior and Senior years. Pros- 
pective students of medicine or law or theology 
can generally select courses that will be helpful 
to them in the professional school. The surest 
way to make the right choice here is to get the 
advice of the dean of the school where one 
intends to pursue his professional studies. 
Many courses have been introduced lately, 
designed in part to give a practical training 
to any student without regard to his profession, 
[39] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

but intended also for those who expect to go 
into business. One who is preparing for busi- 
ness may choose with profit courses dealing 
with money and credit, commerce, transporta- 
tion, trusts, banking, insurance, the science of 
government, and like subjects. 

To secure good results from college work, 
one must be thoroughly interested in it. He 
will then study for the love of it, and will not 
need outside pressure. A strong man is not 
likely to keep up an interest in courses that 
are easy. We become interested in things on 
which we spend time, not in those which require 
but little attention. The surest way to main- 
tain a genuine interest in study is to get under 
stimulating teachers, who are systematic, 
demand regularity of attendance and hard 
work, and know how to make things clear, and 
then to conform strictly to their demands. 

One has advanced a long distance in mental 
training when he is able to concentrate his 
attention on a subject which he wishes to 
investigate. The attention is fixed without 
difficulty on things that are easy and enter- 
taining. A boy will read an interesting book, 
or become engaged in some absorbing game, 
and be utterly insensible to the flight of time; 
but as soon as a difficult mental task is set 
[40] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

before him, the mind shrinks from the effort 
and is constantly wandering to other and 
more congenial subjects. The chief difference 
between the successful and the unsuccessful 
man, whatever his occupation, lies in the ability 
to control the mind. This power will need to 
be acquired. You will find that you cannot 
bring your mind under control without much 
patient effort; but it can be done if you are 
thoroughly in earnest, and you must learn to 
do it. When you sit down to study, give your- 
self wholly to the task before you. Avoid all 
bodily movements that may tend to distract 
your thoughts, and let the mind have a chance 
to work uninterruptedly. If you observe a 
man when he is intensely absorbed in anything, 
as at the critical point in a game, or when 
watching some object in nature, you will see 
that for the moment he has absolute self- 
control. An audience of thousands will listen 
to a fine passage of music in almost perfect 
silence. Can you not learn to fix your mind 
on your work to the same degree.'^ When you 
find your thoughts wandering, resolutely call 
them back again and hold them as closely as 
you can to the task till it is completed. Day 
after day and month after month of this expe- 
rience will gradually secure control over a 
[41] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

wandering mind. By and by you will find that 
you can do in one hour what at first required 
two or three, and it will be better done. Your 
ability to work rapidly and thoroughly will 
increase with each succeeding year, until you 
are able to do the most work in the least time. 
As the body gains its full power by regular 
and systematic exercise through a long period 
of years, so the mind is developed by doing its 
daily tasks patiently and thoroughly. Special 
efforts put forth occasionally may not be with- 
out their value, but such mental strain does 
not properly develop the mind, any more than 
occasional over-exertion develops the body. It 
is by doing conscientiously the duties of each 
day that one acquires the strength which the 
great occasion demands. 

( All work should be done thoroughly, whether 
one Kkes it or not; but if any part of it is to 
be neglected, let it not be the tasks that are 
irksome. These, above all others, are to be 
done religiously. In after life, success cannot 
be attained if one neglects the duties that are 
disagreeable. It is not so very diflBcult to get 
interested in an unwelcome task when one has 
actually begun it; the hard part is to begin. 
Because the very thought of it is annoying, 
you continue to put it off, and keep it out of 
[42] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

mind as long as possible. The way to deal 
with it is to take hold of it first of all. Dimid- 
ium facti, qui ccepit, hahet. If, when you 
have before you several things to do, you take 
up and finish the most irksome first, the others 
will seem light and you will have a comfortable 
satisfaction in place of the cowardly feeling 
which otherwise would hang over you till the 
disagreeable duty is done.^ 

If the work seems to us difiicult, let us take 
hold of it with courage and confidence, and we 
shall find ourselves stronger than we thought. 
We do not know whether we are strong or weak 
till we take up some hard task. The difiiculty 
of it will make it necessary for us to do our 
best, and we shall then get some idea of what 
our best is. It is certain that he will never 
become a strong man who habitually turns 
aside to avoid things that are difficult. Man 
has been developed by facing difficulties and 
overcoming them. In the countries where there 
are few obstacles to contend with, men are 
inferior. A life of ease does not produce men 
of thought and action. If man had always 
lived in a Garden of Eden, with nothing to do 
but till the ground and eat of the fruit thereof, 
he would not have developed the strength, 
courage, self-reliance, and pertinacity which 
[43] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

came from subduing a world which brought 
forth thorns and thistles and on which he ate 
bread in the sweat of his brow. By doing 
hard things, we get the strength that will 
enable us to do things that are yet harder. 

Never urge as an excuse for poor work that 
your surroundings are unfavorable. Remem- 
ber how much has been accomplished by those 
with no early advantages or with bodily 
infirmities which would have been for most of 
us sufficient reason for idleness. No surround- 
ings can be so unfavorable as to keep a young 
man who has health and ability from making 
much of himself, if he follows steadfastly an 
earnest purpose. 

Learn to think for yourself. Do not lean 
on the support of others. One of the worst 
evils from using helps in study, aside from the 
dishonesty of it, is that one loses confidence in 
his own judgment and does not dare to express 
an opinion on any subject until it is supported 
by some one else. A young man takes up in 
college a certain line of study, which leads to 
the degree of Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of 
Philosophy. To prove himself worthy of the 
degree, he is required to complete a certain 
amount of class-room work. But the real pur- 
pose of the college is not that he may accom- 
[44] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

plish this amount of work, nor even that he 
may secure the degree; it is rather, as has 
already been said, that he may gain the train- 
ing in mind and character which comes from 
doing the work. He can have this training 
only by doing the work himself. If, therefore, 
he gets it done for him and then presents it as 
his own, he is defeating the object for which, 
often at great sacrifice to his family, he is 
spending in college the best years of his life. 
Instead of developing into a strong man, he 
is growing weaker in character and intellectual 
power from year to year, and may be really 
less fitted to take up the serious business of life 
at the end of his course than he was at the 
beginning. There is a certain satisfaction in 
having done one's work well, which more than 
compensates for all the hard struggles and 
self-denial involved in doing it well, and the 
joy that comes with the consciousness that 
one's mental powers are growing stronger is 
like the joy of existence in a perfectly healthy 
body. 

There is not the slightest ground for think- 
ing that mental training may be lightly 
regarded by students who plan to enter busi- 
ness. A capable business man is not developed 
by doing things that require no thought. In 
[45] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

more recent years, there has been a steadily 
increasing demand for college men in business. 
It was once believed that if a boy was marked 
out for a business career, college for him would 
mean a waste of time; but a college graduate, 
who has really earned his diploma by hard 
work, has had just the discipline which will 
enable him to succeed in modern business. It 
is not the possession of a diploma that makes 
his services valuable, but the hard work which 
he did in order to get the diploma. It is true 
that he must be willing to begin where his 
untrained brother began ; but the man who has 
learned to concentrate his attention on one 
subject and who knows how to take hold of a 
new problem as a rule soon outstrips his com- 
panion who decided to enter business without 
collegiate study, and within one or two decades 
has ten chances for the larger success which 
every man wishes to achieve, where the un- 
trained man has one. I would not advise any 
one to enter upon a college course in order to 
be better equipped for making money. But 
for a young man of good sense and business 
capacity, a mind disciplined by thorough study 
is a valuable possession, even when estimated 
wholly from a business point of view. 

In a debating society in a small New Eng- 
[46] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

land village a few years since, one question 
under discussion was: "Which is to be pre- 
ferred, education or money?" The society 
decided, I think, that money was to be pre- 
ferred. There were two boys in the village who 
became deeply interested in that question, and 
carefully considered the advantages and dis- 
advantages of a college course. Both were 
without means, and in ability and character 
seemed then not very much unlike. One chose 
to study and earn his way as best he could, 
ignoring the thought of making money; the 
other gave up further study to engage in busi- 
ness, because it gave promise of a more imme- 
diate income. These boys met not long ago 
and compared results. The one who preferred 
money to education had tried different kinds 
of employment, each of which he had given up, 
either because it did not satisfy him or because 
advancement in it was slow, and he had just 
taken a new position, in which he was receiving 
the usual small compensation of a beginner. 
The boy who preferred education to money 
was a Junior in college, ranking well in scholar- 
ship and paying his way by tutoring his class- 
mates in their studies. His working hours 
were several times less, yet his monthly income 
was at least twice as great; and it should be 
[471 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

remembered that he was devoting the greater 
part of his time to his college studies and that 
he took for earning money only the two or 
three hours each day that he did not need for 
his regular occupation. His chief compensa- 
tion was not the sum which was paid him for 
giving private instruction, but the mental 
training which he was getting in college. It 
does not follow, of course, that, if the young 
man who chose to study adopts teaching as a 
profession, the other who chose business will 
not have a much greater income within the next 
ten or twenty years ; nor does it follow that he 
will. But if both become business men, it is 
certain enough that the man with the trained 
mind will be the one to receive steady advance- 
ment. A student who pays his way in college, 
and also ranks well in his class, is getting an 
excellent training for business. 

Your intellectual work should not be limited 
by the requirements of the class-room, but 
should include also a good deal of voluntary 
reading and writing. In the college library is 
stored as much as the institution is able to 
gather of the thought of the wisest men, from 
the earliest time to the present day. This 
information Kes at your command, as far as 
you are able to make use of it. If you are 
[48] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

interested or can get interested in any subject, 
the opportunity to pursue it is here. There is 
far less reading of good books in college today 
than there was fifty years ago, when there was 
little to read except books, and those mostly 
good. The over-supply of newspapers and 
magazines has resulted in the neglect of the 
library by the average college student, and the 
percentage is not large of those who read good 
library books, except upon the requirement of 
the instructor. 

To know a book thoroughly is to know the 
author, and here is your opportunity to become 
acquainted with the good and great of former 
days. What an influence such an acquaintance 
has on a young man's life ! The great writers 
have left us in their works the best part of 
themselves. Shakespeare to us now is not a 
man who hved three hundred years ago and 
wrote plays for the stage, but rather a collec- 
tion of unrivaled literature which bears his 
name. What matters it to us what his personal 
history was, when every thinking man has in 
his own library the collection of literature into 
which he put his thought? That volume in 
your library is more truly Shakespeare than 
the body of flesh which his contemporaries saw. 

The books that you habitually read will be 
[49] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

an index of your character and purpose. It is 
wise, therefore, to begin right. As you can 
read only a limited number of books, by all 
means select the best. Life is too short to waste 
one's time in reading bad or inferior books, 
when there are so many which are excellent. 
One's own self-respect, his regard for his home 
and the companions and friends who believe in 
him, should keep him from reading books which 
are vulgar or immoral, or which border on 
immorahty. Everybody, of course, will read 
the newspapers for the record of current events, 
and the magazines to keep up with the progress 
of the age. In addition, one should also read 
the books with which every educated man ought 
to be familiar, including some of the best works 
of the historians, the biographers, the essayists, 
the novelists, and especially the poets. With- 
out the information and culture which such 
reading affords, you will lack something in your 
mental equipment which others will notice and 
of which you will be too well aware. 

Be thorough and systematic in your reading. 
Read books that make you think, and read 
them so as to become master of the author's 
thought. After having read an article or a 
chapter in a book that interests you, it is good 
practice to write out the substance of it from 
[50] 



THE MAIN PURPOSE 

memory. Much careless reading lessens one's 
power to reproduce what he has read. "Look- 
ing at print," as Charles R. Brown calls such 
reading, adds nothing to one's knowledge and 
weakens rather than strengthens the mental 
grasp. The man who regularly devours the 
newspaper often cannot recall even a witticism 
after an hour; much less can he give you the 
thought of an editorial. 

To become a good writer ought to be a 
student's ambition. This power is attained 
only by long and careful practice. The best 
preparation for writing is thorough study and 
an extensive and careful reading of good books. 
It is of little use to be able to write grammati- 
cally, and even fluently, if you have nothing to 
say. The thought may be very simply and 
plainly stated and still be attractive and com- 
mand attention. By reading good literature 
and by practice under the guidance of an 
instructor, you can acquire a style which is 
your own ; and your own style is better for you 
than a style imitated from some one else. 

In the city or town in which your life is to be 
spent, you will be looked up to as an educated 
man. Even if you do not care now to become 
a writer or speaker, you may be called upon 
then to represent your community, or some 
[51] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

part of It, in situations where it will be of great 
advantage to be able to express your opinions 
intelligently, either on your feet or with your 
pen. You will wish then to have something to 
say, and to be able to say it in clear, con- 
cise and forcible language. Take advantage, 
therefore, of the opportunities which college 
now offers, either in the course of study or in 
the student pubHcations or in the societies, to 
gain facility in writing and in speaking. You 
will find few college graduates who will not 
heartily commend this advice. 



[52] 



in 

HEALTH, RECREATION, AND 
EXERCISE 



The possession of health should be a matter of hearty, 
honest pride. I would have one hold himself ashamed 
who has not a man's share of manly vitality. 

— T. r. Munqer. 



There is more spiritual misery and original sin in 
imperfect digestion than in most human hearts. 

— President Canfield, 

Misce stultitiam consiliis hrevem. — Horace. 

The collegian's standard of purity in his sports should 
be the highest. — Walter Camp, 

In my school days, my lessons were better got in foot- 
ball season, when loyalty to the captain compelled me 
to interrupt the study for the game. 

— Herbert W, Fisher, 

Go forth under the open sky and list to Nature's 
teaching. — Bryant, 

When on the breath of autunm's breeze, 

From pastures dry and brown. 
Goes floating like an idle thought 

The fair white thistledown, 
O then what joy to walk at will 

Upon the golden har\^est hill! 

— Mary Howitt. 



Ill 

HEALTH, RECREATION, AND 
EXERCISE 

No one expects a college student to devote 
his time wholly to study. A great deal ought 
to be gained from college which the class-room 
cannot supply. There are opportunities for 
usefulness, for self -improvement, and for enjoy- 
ment in many directions, some of which will 
not come again. Every student should include 
in his plans some regular form of outside 
activity. The mistake is in allowing this to 
absorb so much attention that it becomes his 
chief occupation. The youth who excused him- 
self to the class officer for his low standing on 
the ground that he had so much to do in ath- 
letics that he had not time for "outside work" 
had come to believe, for the moment at least, 
that his studies were of secondary importance, 
and that his duties on the team rightfully 
took precedence of all else. He might have 
expressed the same view by saying that he did 
not intend to let his studies interfere with his 
college work. 

If one enters properly fitted, with good 
[55] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

health and good habits of study, he can do his 
class-room work thoroughly and also rapidly, 
and have left all the time needed for outside 
activities. There is no good reason why debat- 
ing, or dramatics, or music, or competition for 
the college publications, or any form of ath- 
letics, should interfere with one's studies if he 
has come with adequate preparation, lives 
according to some plan, and is not dawdling 
when he thinks he is studying. The best 
scholars in a class are often among the best 
writers and speakers, and some of the very best 
athletes have ranked high in scholarship. 

One constant aim of every student should 
be a healthy physical development. Whatever 
other things you may sometime possess, these 
will never be your own in the same sense in which 
your body is your own. Other possessions you 
will use and pass on to others. They may be 
exchanged; they may even be destroyed, and 
you suffer no real loss. If you do not like your 
house, you may take it down and build another. 
But your body is actually your own. It may 
be strong, or it may have imperfections; but 
one thing is sure, — it is your body, and you 
will never have any other. It will be your pos- 
session till your last day on earth. You may 
destroy it, but you cannot replace it. When it 
[56] 



HEALTH, RECREATION, EXERCISE 

ceases to act, your place here becomes vacant. 
As with all material things, the care taken of 
it (barring accident) determines how long it 
will last. You may abuse it, and it will break 
down early ; or you may use it reasonably, and 
it will last to a good old age. What it will do 
for you depends not more on inheritance than 
on care. Indeed, great length of life has 
sometimes been due to bodily weakness in youth. 
In my Freshman year I saw President Jere- 
miah Day occasionally, at morning chapel and 
at the Sunday religious services. He was then 
a very old man. In his thirtieth year, when 
serving as tutor, his health failed and he was 
forced to abandon his work before entering 
upon the duties of the professorship to which 
he had recently been elected. A fellow tutor 
wrote to Professor Silliman, then in Phila- 
delphia: "I have lately heard from Mr. Day. 
He is no better, but rather worse. Dr. Dwight 
told me a short time since that he had given up 
the expectation of ever seeing Mr. Day in the 
professor's chair. That such a man should be 
cut off in the very bloom of life is to human 
eye dark and mysterious." But Mr. Day was 
not to be cut off in the very bloom of life. 
From this experience he learned so well how to 
take care of himself that he added to his life 
[57] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

more than three score years. He lived to serve 
the college fourteen years as a professor of 
mathematics and twenty-nine years as presi- 
dent ; twenty years after withdrawing from the 
presidency, he died at the age of ninety-four. 
Samuel Nott, a graduate of Yale College in 
1780, was "feeble and sickly when young," but 
by great care he became strong enough to con- 
tinue unaided in one pastorate nearly sixty- 
six years, and died as the result of an acci- 
dent in his ninety-ninth year. Many similar 
examples might be given. If men who inherited 
feeble constitutions could by wise care be active 
till seventy or eighty, what may not the young 
man accomplish, by the same care, who has 
inherited a strong constitution.^ 

How few years you will have, at best, for 
your life work ! You will hardly enter upon it 
before your thirtieth year; and if you last till 
three score and ten, there will be left but forty 
years of activity in your profession. And what 
are forty years ? Made up of only ten periods, 
each of the length of the brief course in col- 
lege ! You will just begin to feel that you have 
become master of your calling and are ready 
to do your best work, when the body will begin 
to show itself unequal to the strain. This is 
not a reason for entering on your work earlier, 
[58] 



HEALTH, RECREATION, EXERCISE 

before you are mature and well prepared, for 
that might shorten your period of activity 
rather than lengthen it; it is rather a reason 
for taking such care of the body that you may 
long continue to be active and useful. The 
vitality of a healthy body gives a man the con- 
fidence to take up positions of responsibility 
and the strength to meet successfully the duties 
and overcome the obstacles which he will have 
to face. To a college man, health should be the 
first consideration. It is a question whether 
it is wise for one without sound health to go to 
college. While I would not discourage him 
from making the attempt, I should say, unhesi- 
tatingly, get health first and college later. 

Whether a man is old or young does not 
depend altogether upon the number of years 
since his birth. In reckoning time, the Romans 
looked forward as well as backward. In its 
relation to your life and your usefulness, the 
question of age depends more on the years 
before than on those behind you. The essential 
consideration is, how much of your vitality have 
you used up, and how much have you left? A 
student who graduates at the age of twenty, 
with a body enfeebled by overwork, neglect, or 
dissipation, and unable to resist disease, whose 
life is not likely to reach out beyond his thirtieth 
[59] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

or fortieth year, is really older than his class- 
mate of twenty-eight who has the prospect of 
being able to do a man's work till he is seventy. 
When considering a person's age, we always 
ask. How old is he? i.e., how long since he was 
born ; a more important question is. How young 
is he? And this depends at least as much on 
the years of his life still remaining as on those 
already spent. If a student in college, with his 
opportunities to learn about himself and with 
the equipment and time allowed him for physical 
development, will give due attention to the laws 
of health, he may reasonably expect to lengthen 
his active life by many years and to be a young 
man at fifty or sixty. 

A man thinks as little as possible about his 
health till he has lost it. The vigorous youth 
does not believe that what has happened to 
others will happen to him. He has a vague 
idea that he is destined by the fates to a long 
life, whether he takes any care of himself or 
not ; or he feels strong enough now^ and cares 
nothing about the future. He will leave the 
future to take care of itself. But because you 
are strong, that is the very reason why you 
should not dissipate the natural energy that 
God and nature have given you. You are not 
wholly your own; you are a part of the best 
[60] 



HEALTH, RECREATION, EXERCISE 

assets of your family, of your town, of the col- 
lege in which you are being educated. You 
owe it to all these interests to preserve your 
body pure and strong for a service as efficient 
and long as possible. If you have inherited a 
strong and healthy body, you are under espe- 
cial obligations to take care of it, as you would 
of any priceless possession. Yet because you 
now feel the glow of health, you naturally 
think that no care is necessary, that you can 
disregard the laws of health, eat and drink 
what and when and as much as you will, neglect 
exercise and sleep, and run into any form of 
excess. You can do this if you choose, but you 
will sooner or later pay the penalty. Though 
the penalty be long delayed, it is sure to come, 
and it will not be light. It is nowhere more true 
than in matters of health that "the way of the 
transgressor is hard," and that "whatsoever a 
man soweth, that shall he also reap." Good 
health is a birthright too precious to be bar- 
tered away thoughtlessly. The secret of health 
for you is simple. It is found in fresh air, pure 
water, proper exercise, frugal and wholesome 
diet, and plenty of sleep. If you will make 
sure of these, and in addition avoid all forms of 
dissipation and never worry, you will have little 
occasion to think about your health. 
[61] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

But one may have physical weaknesses which 
he does not himself detect, and which, if not 
corrected, may lead to serious results. The 
colleges now furnish to the student the oppor- 
tunity to learn by a physical examination where 
his body is below the normal standard, and 
what exercises he should take to strengthen the 
weaker parts so that he may become a well- 
developed man. This is a privilege which every 
one ought gladly to accept. 

Intellectual tasks are harder than physical, 
and to keep in good condition a man who does 
hard intellectual work must have recreation; 
but the recreation must be wholesome and 
healthful, and it must not be so absorbing as to 
take the place of the regular occupation. Many 
people at the present day seem to have adopted 
recreation as their profession. Some students 
get a certain degree of relaxation by turning 
from their daily tasks to another kind of intel- 
lectual pursuit. The mind, like the body, is 
rested by change of occupation. But this is 
not enough. At some time each day, — and if 
convenient, at the same hour, — throw aside all 
intellectual work and give yourself up for the 
time to some exercise that affords entire relaxa- 
tion. This will bring you back again to your 
book or pen with your mind fresh and active. 
[62] 



HEALTH, RECREATION, EXERCISE 

Make relaxation a rule. If you try to get on 
without it, the mind will lose its grip. 

Each must discover for himself what is the 
best kind of recreation and exercise; one pre- 
scription will not fit all cases. What is one 
man's play may be another's work. The man 
who toils with his hands is rested and refreshed 
by an evening spent with books, and the student 
finds relaxation in doing things which are work 
when done to earn one's living. You find relax- 
ation in walking about the streets of the city, 
but the postman does not. The student of 
seventy years ago sawed wood to earn money, 
and was satisfied with this for exercise. He 
felt no need of gymnastics or athletics. But 
most modern students would hardly accept as 
a satisfactory form of exercise any kind of 
activity to which a money value could be 
affixed, even if it produced as good results. 
The students of former days were round- 
shouldered and dyspeptic. The modem forms 
of exercise and recreation produce better 
physical development. 

Athletic sports are undoubtedly the best 
form of physical exercise for most young men, 
combining healthful activity in the open air 
with wholesome recreation. They demand that 
generous rivalry which leads to enthusiastic 
[63J 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

participation. They teach also courage, self- 
control, and loyalty, and are most important 
helps in the development of a strong character. 
They must not be made the chief interest in 
college, but should be wisely subordinated to 
the main purpose of college life. Under the 
direction of a competent physical adviser, a 
student should select those forms of indoor and 
outdoor exercise which are likely to contribute 
most toward his physical development and the 
prolongation of an active life. It is quite pos- 
sible for a young man who is too independent 
to receive advice to take exercises in the gym- 
nasium or on the athletic field which may do 
him great harm. 

In case you seem to have the necessary physi- 
cal qualifications, you may be asked to try for 
one or more of the athletic teams. If your 
body stands the test of a thorough physical 
examination, and if you are well up in your 
studies, it may not be unwise to make the trial. 
If, after long periods of training, you finally 
succeed, you will have to sacrifice much ; yet, if 
you can meet the requirements without neglect- 
ing your studies, the strict discipline to which 
you will have to submit will be worth all that it 
costs. But unless you are able and willing to 
maintain a good rank in scholarship and to 
[64] 



HEALTH, RECREATION, EXERCISE 

keep in strict training, you have no right to 
compete for a place on an intercollegiate team. 
You will prove false to the captain and the 
coaches, as well as to the college, if any defi- 
ciency for which you alone are responsible pre- 
vents your playing after so much time and 
effort have been spent in preparing you for the 
final contest. If you ever have the honor to 
represent your college in a championship game 
or race, you will need all the strength and 
endurance you have been able to store up. 
Playing in a hotly contested football game, or 
pulling in the last half of a close race, is about 
the furthest thing in the world from recreation. 
I believe in college athletics when rightly 
managed, and do not see how any one who has 
watched the change that has taken place in 
the manners and morals of students since the 
introduction of athletic sports could be willing 
to give them up and go back to things as they 
were. I do not believe there is any less study 
in college on account of athletics. The time 
that was formerly idled away, and the animal 
spirits that were vented in destruction of prop- 
erty or in dissipation, are now devoted to ath- 
letic sports. But it is much to be regretted 
that the intense interest of the public in inter- 
collegiate contests has given such contests 
[65] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

a greatly exaggerated importance; and if the 
interest of students in college athletics could 
be maintained without them, it would perhaps 
be better if intercollegiate contests were given 
up. It is not putting things in their right 
proportion when the name of a college athlete 
of twenty is better known throughout the whole 
country than that of the head of the institution 
in which he is a student, or of any man in 
public life except the President of the United 
States. 

Both in the general management of athletic 
sports and in the actual contests on the field 
and water, all will agree that every participant 
should on all occasions be a gentleman and show 
courteous and generous treatment toward his 
rival. While it is expected that both sides will 
"play the game for all it is worth," the aim is 
of course to win only by fair means. The col- 
lege encourages athletic sports for the exercise 
and training which they require, and not in 
order to gain a victory over some rival insti- 
tution. It is worth something to win, — no one 
will deny that; but it is worth more to play a 
clean, aggressive, manly game. It is worth 
more to learn to bear up bravely under an 
honorable defeat than it is to win. If defeat 
comes, take it like men, and give generous 
[66] 



HEALTH, RECREATION, EXERCISE 

praise to the victorious rival. In the inter- 
collegiate contests forty years ago, the losers 
often tried to show that they deserved to win. 
If the contest was on the water, they had been 
fouled or had broken an oar; sometimes they 
challenged the victorious crew to row the race 
over again on the following day, well aware 
that no attention would be given to such a chal- 
lenge. If the contest was in baseball, the 
umpire was unfair or the field poor. One grat- 
ifying result of several decades of college ath- 
letics is the commendable spirit now generally 
shown in defeat. Today the defeated side is 
expected to accept the result without question, 
and to admit generously that the best team 
has won. It is hard to do this, but it is manly. 
To attempt any other explanation, when the 
contest has been fairly decided against you, is 
to act like children. The public generally has 
no sympathy whatever with the attempt to win 
by disconcerting the opposing team. The aim 
should be to win by playing a good game, not 
by making the other side play poorly. All con- 
centrated efforts, whether by the team or by 
its supporters, designed to "rattle" the players 
on the other side are unworthy of college men, 
and are generally displeasing to the spectators 
on both sides. Any close contest will be hard- 
[67] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

fought, but it must not arouse the spirit of 
anger or revenge. One of the claims for ath- 
letic sports is that they train men to self- 
control under the strongest provocation. 

For those who have not the physical ability 
or the ambition to make the university team in 
any of the major or minor sports, there ought 
to be in the colleges, as there is in many of the 
best schools, opportunity to engage in the same 
sports solely for exercise and recreation. Col- 
lege athletics are rightly criticized because they 
offer their advantages to the strong only, and 
do little for the average student. Gymnasiums 
and athletic fields ought to be administered for 
the use of those who need them, as well as for 
the expert athlete and gymnast. Athletic and 
gymnastic contests between departments, or 
classes, or dormitories, or scholarship divisions, 
are to be heartily encouraged. Not much good 
comes from obliging men to take exercise that 
they do not like. Whether of simian descent 
or not, man seems to be by nature a lazy 
animal, in whose view bodily exercise profiteth 
little. But it would seem that, amid all the 
various sports now common, if the opportunity 
were offered, any young man might find at 
least one in which he could engage with enthu- 
siasm and profit. 

[68] 



HEALTH, RECREATION, EXERCISE 

For the general purpose of recreation and 
exercise, there is nothing better for the average 
student than a brisk walk in the bracing air 
among the hills or by the seashore, with pleas- 
ant companions. If you go alone, the thoughts 
that trouble you at other times will trouble 
you then. Have something interesting to see, 
talk about your plans for life, and avoid dis- 
cussion of subjects on which you disagree. 
Cast away care and go simply to have a good 
time. 

An experience of over forty years has made 
me a firm believer in light gymnastics for a 
busy man, or for one who cannot take more 
vigorous exercise. I began life with a weak 
constitution, and at the time of graduation 
from college had no expectation of living to be 
an old man. Charles S. Royse, a well-known 
teacher of gymnastics, my colleague at the 
Chickering Institute, with sympathetic interest, 
taught me such exercises as one could conven- 
iently take in his room each day. His instruc- 
tions and advice I have followed with great 
advantage. This practice, with prudent habits 
and a fondness for outdoor life, enabled me to 
continue active service without interruption up 
to the age of seventy. Such exercises, if taken 
regularly, consume little time, while, by keeping 
[69] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

one in a condition to do better work, they in 
effect add to the working time of each day and 
actually lengthen the working period of life. 



[70] 



IV 

SELF-DISCIPLINE 



uEquam memento rebus in arduu 
servare mentem, 

— Horace. 

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and 
sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. 

— Burke, 

Decide not rashly; the decision made 
Can never be recalled. The gods implore not. 
Plead not, solicit not; they only offer 
Choice and occasion, which, once being past, 
Return no more. 

— Longfellow, 

For gold is tried in the fire, and acceptable men in the 
furnace of adversity. — Ecclesiasticus. 

If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is 
small. — Proverbs, 

Work on, and be not disheartened 

By the tasks that come with each day. 

For failures but make us the stronger 
To conquer what hinders our way. 

— Mary B, Ehrmann, 

Instruction does not prevent waste of time or mis- 
takes, and mistakes themselves are often the best teach- 
ers of all. — Froude. 

Life is not so short but that there is always time 
enough for courtesy. — Emerson, 

Use doth breed a habit in a man. — Shakespeare, 



IV 
SELF-DISCIPLINE 

If one is ambitious to make the most of his 
opportunities, both in college and in the after 
years, he must be systematic about his daily 
tasks. Working according to a fixed plan has 
been well compared to skillful packing of 
articles in a trunk. The systematic arrange- 
ment enables you to put a great amount in a 
small space. If you have no assignment of 
duties to the different parts of the day, much 
of your day will run to waste; but if the day 
is divided according to the work that must be 
done, you will do one thing at a time and each 
in its order, and thus be ready to meet your 
appointments. If you are systematic, you will 
know where to look for a thing when you want 
it. Half of the time of some men is spent in 
looking for what they have mislaid, or in doing 
over what ought to have been done at first once 
for all. 

It is easy to become systematic in college, 

since so many of your duties are fixed for you 

and the time definitely settled when they must 

be met. Under the old system, when all the 

[73] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

students in a class had the same exercises, even 
the hours for study were arranged, and a period 
for preparation was allowed before each recita- 
tion or lecture. Now the day's exercises may 
follow one another closely, with no interval 
between for preparation. This is less con- 
venient, but it is better for you to learn to 
plan your own work a day or more in advance, 
if necessary, than to have the periods for study 
marked out for you by college authority. 

Most of us seldom accomplish much in the 
long vacation. We go home or to the moun- 
tains or to the seashore for the summer, with 
the intention of doing a good amount of work; 
and, if health does not forbid, there is no reason 
why we should not. Three months of mere 
recreation are more likely to unfit one for the 
duties of the following year than to prepare 
him for them. Every student knows how diffi- 
cult it is to make the mind work at the begin- 
ning of a new year. But the long vacation days 
are mainly wasted because of our irregular and 
unsystematic manner of life. Two fixed hours 
each day spent in thorough study would yield 
far better results than we now get from our 
aimless attempts running through the greater 
part of the summer, and the keen intellectual 
effort would add greatly to the enjoyment of 
[74] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

the whole period. Moreover, a man takes great 
satisfaction in working under the restraint of 
a plan which he has marked out for himself. 
The day spent without a purpose is the most 
unsatisfactory of all. 

You will of course try for many things in 
college that you do not get. The great 
majority of a class must fail in their efforts 
to win the positions which they are ambitious 
to attain. This is especially so in a large col- 
lege. The positions are few, and the candi- 
dates many. Failure ought not to be followed 
by discouragement, but by greater effort to 
succeed in the next attempt. It is failure that 
stimulates us to our highest endeavors. There 
is nothing that will so arouse an earnest man as 
the sting of defeat. Suppose that you win 
nothing in all your competitions. If you make 
a worthy fight, the defeat is honorable, and 
there is really no loss. The great object is 
gained if the stimulus was sufficient to urge 
you to do your best. Suppose you fail alto- 
gether of social recognition, and have no 
opportunity to know by personal experience 
what are the advantages and disadvantages 
of fraternity life. Is it not a great deal 
better to be worthy of such recognition and 
not get it, than to get it and not be worthy 
[75] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

of it? Strive to be worthy rather than to seem 
so. If disappointment comes, do not forget 
that the object of all the experience in college 
is to train you for the wider experience of life. 
A man who has been defeated in every college 
contest, or has failed to get the social honors 
which he coveted, may go out, and ought to 
go out, with a determination to win in his pro- 
fession, which otherwise he would never have 
had; and the defeats that come then he will 
know better how to turn into victories. An 
academical training would do far too little for 
a man if he could win everything for which he 
tries. No such experience comes in after life 
to a man who is truly ambitious. If he aims 
at the highest ultimate success possible for him, 
he must be ready to welcome failure and disap- 
pointment in the earlier years, and must rise 
from the inspiration gained from defeat. 

No one doubts the truth of the Old Testa- 
ment proverb : "He that ruleth his spirit is bet- 
ter than he that taketh a city." We excuse 
angry words in children and in uncultured men, 
but when an educated man loses his temper he 
leaves an unfavorable impression that is not 
easily effaced. When he has had time to cool, 
he is himself immediately conscious of a loss of 
self-respect, and is well aware that he has lost 
[76] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

the respect of other men. There is something 
very humiliating in giving way to anger; one 
says and does such foolish things. We forget 
almost all the other follies of our early com- 
panions and classmates, but the angry words 
by which one has sometimes revealed the meaner 
side of his nature we may forgive, but we do 
not forget. Some regrettable displays of tem- 
per might be avoided by following the old rule, 
ascribed to Thomas Jefferson : "If angry, count 
ten before you speak; if very angry, count 
a hundred." If one can check the explosion 
long enough to realize what a foolish thing he 
is about to do, he will not do it. 

If you have injured another by word or act, 
whether deliberately or under the influence of 
sudden anger, the only right thing to do is to 
acknowledge it frankly and make all possible 
reparation. This is far more important for you 
than for the person you have injured. If you 
let it go by unatoned for, he may possibly for- 
get the injury, but the unkind act will not be 
effaced from your own memory. The con- 
sciousness of having done wrong often hardens 
one's heart toward the man whom he has 
wronged. Proprium humani ingenii est odisse 
quern Iceseris. It is generally the one who has 
done the wrong who obstinately refuses offers 
[77] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

of reconciliation, and not the one who has 
suffered. 

I once had a friend who would have been a 
universal favorite but for these two serious 
faults. He was one of the most kind-hearted 
men I ever knew ; hardly a day passed when he 
did not do something to lighten others' burdens. 
But when under the influence of uncontrollable 
anger, which was not infrequent, he would say 
unkind and cruel things to those who happened 
to differ from him. Yet, strange to say, he was 
never known to apologize for his cruel words. 
Even his harsh speeches could have been for- 
given if he had expressed to those whose feel- 
ings he had injured the sorrow which he must 
have felt. I often call to mind, in contrast, the 
loving act of a classmate who, on a cold winter 
night, on Andover Hill, rose from the firelight 
and crossed the campus that he might apolo- 
gize to a comrade whose feelings he feared that 
he had hurt by a thoughtless remark during the 
day, but which, as it proved, his comrade had 
not even noticed. 

Failure to show appreciation for favors done 
is a common fault of youth, which the expe- 
rience of maturer years often corrects. It arises 
sometimes from the erroneous feeling that the 
favor received is something to which you have 
[78] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

a right, and that no obligation is due on your 
part, as, for example, in the acceptance of tui- 
tion scholarships or loans. It is no excuse to 
say that your benefactor knows that you appre- 
ciate his kindness and that it is therefore unnec- 
essary for you to tell him so ; or that you have 
much gratitude but cannot express it. I doubt 
if we ever have more real gratitude than we are 
willing to make the effort to show. There have 
been students under financial embarrassment 
who have received gifts of money from class- 
mates or instructors without so much as a word 
of thanks. We call them very ungrateful, and 
so they are. But how many of us who have 
been kept in college by scholarships or fellow- 
ships have ever written letters of appreciation 
to the persons who gave them? When the 
founder of a large annual scholarship, which 
had already been awarded in twenty successive 
classes, was thanked by the person to whom it 
had been assigned for the twenty-first year, he 
said, somewhat regretfully, that this was the 
first word of appreciation of his gift that he 
had ever received from a student. I fear that 
many other donors of scholarships could say 
as much, or more. 

I know by experience that hardly one-half of 
those who write to a college officer for recom- 
[79] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

mendations, or for information or advice, even 
acknowledge the receipt of his reply. Thank- 
ing your correspondent in advance may save a 
little time, but it is bad practice, if that is all 
the thanks you give him. There is no valid 
excuse for failure to write a courteous note of 
acknowledgment for any favor received. I have 
noticed that the correspondent most likely to 
fail to thank you for services done him is the 
one who urges you to answer his letter without 
delay, as he must have the reply at once. He 
has himself postponed writing till the latest 
possible moment, and now expects you to has- 
ten in order to make up for his slackness. 

One of the worst enemies of success is indo- 
lence. "He that drives away time spurs a fast 
horse." The idea that enjoyment comes from 
having little or nothing to do, is fascinating 
but not true. It is even better to spend all 
one's time in some healthy recreation than to 
be idle. The surest way to get a diseased mind 
is through idleness. The man with nothing to 
do is never satisfied with himself. He is the 
one to whom life becomes a burden, while he 
himself also is a burden on the community. If 
Satan does not find some mischief for his hands 
to do, he will be a great consumer of other men's 
time and will live upon what they produce. 
[80] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

I We cannot be too much in earnest to free 
ourselves from personal traits that betray inti- 
macy with bad associates or lack of early home 
training. Men whose business it is to learn 
just what we are (prospective employers, for 
example) will be taking our measure when we 
think we are not under observation, and will 
be greatly influenced by httle things. A Sen- 
ior of creditable scholarship lost a good place 
in which I expected to locate him, because he 
tipped his chair back against the wall and used 
a toothpick during his entire interview with the 
principal who had called on him at his room 
fully intending to engage him. J When talking 
with you, a nervous man— and most Americans 
are nervous — keeps his hands or fingers in con- 
stant motion. So often does an inexperienced 
public speaker. Such awkwardness prevents 
him from giving his whole thought to his sub- 
ject and takes away the attention of the hearer, 
who watches his eccentricities and pays less heed 
to what he says. Many of us have peculiarities 
of manner which annoy our friends, and for 
which they sometimes need to make apology 
on our behalf. Some seem to be peculiar from 
choice. It is well to try to be like other people. 
There is no need of making any effort to be 
singular; if we get rid of all the peculiarities 
[81] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

of which we are aware, there may still be too 
many left. 

( The man who thinks before he speaks gets a 
reputation for wisdom, sometimes beyond what 
he really deserves; but the word of the youth 
who expresses positive opinions on every sub- 
ject which comes up carries no weight, even 
when he happens to be right, because he is so 
often wrong and is usually ill-mannered. In the 
class-room, as well as in private conversation, 
it is best to be positive only about things of 
which one is reasonably sure. No one covets 
the reputation of being a bluffer, or of coming 
to his conclusions by guess-work. Do not be 
afraid to say you do not know; it is often a 
mark of wisdom. \ 

Do not underestimate the value of regularity. 
Meet every appointment promptly, whether it 
be with the Faculty or with your classmates. 
The student who aims to be absent from class- 
room exercises as often as he can, and to do as 
little work in his studies as is possible without 
being dropped, thinks that he is cheating the 
Faculty ; but when a young man pays to the 
college treasurer a tuition fee of one hundred 
and fifty dollars per year for the privilege of 
attending recitations and lectures, by what pro- 
cess of reasoning does he discover that the more 
[82] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

absences he can take from these exercises with- 
out being dismissed, the more he gets out of the 
college? Or, when it costs him thirty dollars 
a year to take a course, on what ground does 
he conclude that it is sheer loss if by poor cal- 
culation he gets a mark in the course a few 
points higher than he needs in order to pass it? 
Be not unwilling to acknowledge mistakes. 
To assume the responsibility for what you have 
done, or have failed to do, and to apologize 
when an apology is necessary, is characteristic 
of the highest type of a gentleman. Many, 
perhaps most of us, are more anxious to con- 
ceal our mistakes or to show that we are right, 
than to profit by the experience. I remember 
well two of my early instructors, one of whom 
would never admit that he had made an error, 
though he did make many. The other always 
cheerfully accepted a correction when he was 
wrong, and took special pains to correct his 
error later in the presence of the class. It is 
not necessary to say that the class had great 
confidence in the latter instructor, whose pur- 
pose was plainly to get at the truth, and very 
little in the former, whose aim was to justify 
his own statements, whether they were right or 
wrong. President Roosevelt says : "The only 
[83] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

man who makes no mistakes is the man who 
never does anything." 

Make it a rule to finish what you begin. 
Even though the object to be accomplished 
proves to be not worth the effort, it is far bet- 
ter, in your college days at least, to finish it 
and finish it well, for the sake of the discipline. 
You will learn to plan more carefully before 
taking up another task. If you have made a 
serious promise, do not fail to keep it. When 
you have selected a course of study that proves 
undesirable, do not ask leave to change it, but 
continue it to the end. The experience will 
teach you that you must not sign your name 
thoughtlessly to an agreement that you do not 
intend to keep. The men who fail to accom- 
plish what they design to do, and are able to 
do, are the ones who lack the persistency to 
stick to an undertaking till it is completed. 
It is persistency that wins. "Unstable as 
water, thou shalt not excel." 

From the beginning of your college days, 
you have to make many important decisions, 
some of which will affect your whole life. In 
making them, you must have a mind of your 
own. It is wise to get all the advice you can, 
but no one else can decide your questions for 
you. The important thing is to plan so deliber- 
[84] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

ately that the decision will be final. After a 
decision has been definitely made, a reaction 
regularly follows, and all the arguments 
against the plan you have adopted come up to 
convince you that you have decided wrongly. 
This is the weakness of human nature. Do not 
give such thoughts a place in your mind. 
Later, when you meet with difficulties and hard- 
ships that you did not foresee, hesitate long 
before allowing them to weaken your determina- 
tion to follow the course which you have delib- 
erately chosen. If another man's calhng seems 
to you better than the one which you have 
selected, it is generally because you know all the 
unpleasant things in your own and see only 
those that are pleasant in his. You see his life 
only on the outside. 

A habit is formed by doing over and over 
again the same act. This act may be involun- 
tary, and sometimes we discover that we are 
under the control of a habit formed quite 
unconsciously. Occasional good acts, though 
commendable in themselves, do not indicate 
that we are going forward in the right direc- 
tion; that is revealed only when the same 
actions become habitual. Good habits are a 
sort of balance-wheel in one's life. They keep 
one going steadily forward, doing his work, 
[85] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

little influenced by things that would hinder 
his progress. We are all creatures of habit, 
and we are and forever shall be what our habits 
make us. Habit has been called second nature, 
but its power seems sometimes even stronger 
than nature itself. When good habits have 
become thoroughly established, they are towers 
of strength that are hard to overthrow; and 
when one tries to break ofF an evil habit that 
has been long indulged, he discovers what the 
Prophet meant when he wrote : "Can the Ethio- 
pian change his skin, or the leopard his spots .^^ 
Then may ye also do good who are accustomed 
to do evil.'' Such is the tendency of nature 
that bad habits are formed without effort, while 
those that are good are established with diffi- 
culty and maintained only by a persistent 
struggle, just as a field will grow weeds luxuri- 
antly without the help of man, but the best 
grain only by constant cultivation. 

The problem for the most of us is, how to 
get rid of habits that are evil. Good resolu- 
tions cost little, and are generally thought to 
be worth about what they cost. There is noth- 
ing to be said against them, when they are 
made deliberately and in thorough earnestness ; 
but they are rarely made with any determined 
purpose to put them into eff*ect. One should 
[86] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

get thoroughly convinced that the habit to be 
overcome is not necessary to his enjoyment, 
and that he will be better off without it. The 
determination to get rid of it must take pos- 
session of the mind, and must enter into the 
plan of daily life. Most resolutions do not get 
below the surface, and have therefore no last- 
ing control over the conduct. When the first 
temptation comes, we think with Rip Van 
Winkle, "We'll not count this time" ; and there 
is no chance of a victory after that. I remem- 
ber a boy in the Academy who kept writing in 
his diary the resolve to give up the use of 
tobacco, which he knew was injuring his health; 
but he came suddenly to the end of his days 
when the habit was still on him, because he never 
took the first earnest step to carry out his reso- 
lution. An old farmer of my acquaintance, 
speaking of an indolent and shiftless neighbor, 
said : "For ten years he has been telling us that 
he is turning over a new leaf; what he needs is 
to turn over a new leaf and keep it over." When, 
under the influence of emotion, one resolves to 
begin anew and do better, he can easily turn 
over a new leaf; but it is far from easy to keep 
it over. There is only one way to make sure 
that it will not turn back again, and that is 
to hold it down till the new position becomes 
[87J 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

habitual; and even then it needs constant 
watching. But what a person has done once 
he can more easily do a second time; and when 
an act has become habitual, he may continue 
to do with positive enjoyment what at first was 
difficult or distasteful. I have often quoted as 
an example the student who, after a year of 
great irregularity, made a sudden change 
which I little expected, and attended practi- 
cally every college exercise for the remainder of 
his course. He told me afterward that he soon 
found it easier to go to everything than to be 
irregular. 

Any effort for reformation must be positive. 
If the mind is well occupied with ennobling 
thoughts, there will be no place for evil 
thoughts. Not many bad habits have ever been 
broken off by simply resolving to give them up. 
A good habit must be put in place of the bad. 
If one is indolent, it is not enough to resolve not 
to be indolent; he must inaugurate the habit 
of industry by marking out his work and ful- 
filling at the appointed times the tasks which 
he has set for himself. The story is familiar to 
all, of the working man, who, in order to keep 
his resolution to give up drinking, went to and 
from his work every day by a longer route that 
would not lead him past the place of temptation. 
[88] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

An evil habit grips a man with iron force, 
though he will not believe it till he tries to break 
the bonds. The habit that it is now hard to 
conquer was begun by a single act, perhaps 
done thoughtlessly, perhaps against the admo- 
nitions of conscience and in defiance of home 
training, perhaps to be thought manly and 
independent. However strongly it may be 
entrenched, it can be overcome. The ambition 
to make the most of one's self, in order to honor 
one's father and mother or one's college, or to 
help to make the lot of humanity better, will 
give one strength to conquer the worst habit, 
as the experience of many young men, in col- 
lege and out of college, has shown. 

Profanity is an inexcusable and useless habit. 
In no case does it make one's words more con- 
vincing. It is generally employed by those who 
do not take the trouble or do not have the abil- 
ity to express themselves in pure and forceful 
English. It is no longer indulged in by gentle- 
men, and is to most people vulgar and repul- 
sive. It is the mark of a certain kind of men- 
tal inferiority, and one addicted to it greatly 
lessens his influence with his fellows and stands 
much less chance of securing a desirable posi- 
tion or of gaining promotion. 

Intemperance, gambling, and unchastity so 
[89] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

utterly ruin one's chances for success in any 
line, either in college or in after life, that the 
only course for a young man of sense and ambi- 
tion is to keep entirely clear of them. One who 
ought to know has left us the only safe rule 
to follow when tempted to any evil path : "Avoid 
it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away." 
You will be a better man for making Sunday 
a day of rest, a day for public worship, and for 
thought of the family at home; and on no 
account can you afford to lose the special 
opportunity which this day affords for thor- 
ough acquaintance with your classmates. 
Whatever view you may hold regarding the 
obligation to observe Sunday on religious 
grounds, you should habitually abstain from 
work on that day on the ground of health and 
of public welfare. "The Sabbath was made for 
man, and not man for the Sabbath." I believe 
that in the end one will accomplish more by 
working only six days in the week than he would 
by working seven. The body soon breaks down 
if it is not given periods of rest and change. 
No one doubts that the working man should 
have his Sundays free from toil, for religious 
observance and for wholesome recreation, or 
that a quiet day is better for him than one of 
excitement and disorder. The college man 
[90] 



SELF-DISCIPLINE 

should set the example by a proper observance 
of Sunday himself, and should use his influence, 
publicly and privately, that the same may be 
secured and guaranteed to others. 

If a young man enters college with well- 
established habits of industry, honesty and 
purity, no temptation to go wrong ought to 
have any power over him. If he is known to his 
classmates at the beginning as a man of cor- 
rect habits, they will expect him to remain so, 
and he will escape the solicitation to evil to 
which the irresolute man, who has no mind of 
his own, is exposed. 

t A man whose health is sound, whose mind 
is filled with good thoughts, and whose char- 
acter is beyond suspicion, has personal pos- 
sessions that have actual value. Bodily health 
is mainly the result of intelligent care ; mental 
health is the natural condition of a well-occu- 
pied mind. Trustworthy character is not 
inherited, though many ethical traits may be, 
and is not acquired by listening to discourses 
on morality, though they may be helpful, but 
is developed by long practice in doing thor- 
oughly and honestly our daily duties while try- 
ing to live a correct life. \ 



[91] 



COURAGE AND HONOR 



I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue 
enough to maintain what I consider the most invaluable 
of all titles, — the character of an honest man. 

— Oeorge Washington, 

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; 
When health is lost, something is lost; 
When character is lost, all is lost. 

— Anonymous, 

No circumstances can repair a defect of character. 

— Emerson, 

Many men build as cathedrals were built, — the part 
nearest the ground finished, but that part which soars 
toward heaven, the turrets and spires, forever incom- 
plete. — Henry Ward Beecher. 

Gentlemen do not cheat, nor do they deceive themselves 
as to what cheating is. — Walter Camp, 

Few persons have courage enough to appear as good 
as they really are. — ^'Guesses at Truth." 

There ought to be in all college life rigid, unsympa- 
thetic honesty, like that of the bank or the counting- 
room. The perpetual effort after personal righteous- 
ness should stand as an abiding expression of the reli- 
gious life. — Charles R. Brown. 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

There is no influence in college so hard to 
resist as public sentiment. When this is right, 
as it is on most subjects, it is a mighty power 
for good ; when it stamps with its approval acts 
that are morally wrong, and defends them on 
the ground of custom, good men ought to have 
the courage to oppose it openly. One may at 
first be deceived in regard to the moral stand- 
ard of the college, and believe that it is repre- 
sented by the small circle in which he moves. 
He should not imagine that questionable con- 
duct and character are approved by the college 
at large because some of his companions openly 
show their approval. Sometimes a few men in 
the early part of Freshman year put them- 
selves forward and for a time appear to their 
followers to set the standard for the class. 
They study but little, pride themselves on their 
skill in questionable methods and their knowl- 
edge of shady places. If they are able to 
remain in college, their influence will be short 
lived. The great body of students in college 

r95] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

are upright and honorable, and have no respect 
for men destitute of moral principle. 

When a young man goes wrong, we some- 
times hear it said in his defence, that he has 
been influenced by unfavorable circumstances. 
People generally understand that this is no 
defence, but only a poor apology for the feeble- 
ness of his character. It is not complimentary 
to him to say that he has been influenced by 
unfavorable circumstances. What can life be 
to one who yields to every influence and has no 
moral standard of his own? As a rule, a man 
who cannot resist temptation in one college, or 
one profession, or one city, would not in 
another. In any other situation he would find 
the surroundings also unfavorable for the devel- 
opment of his character. If present circum- 
stances are not favorable to him, he must make 
them so by some change in himself. The ten- 
dency everywhere is for a good man to grow 
better, and for the bad man to grow worse, and 
it does not so much matter where the man is. 
The same influences help the one and hinder the 
other. If a man is ruining his health by glut- 
tony, he will not be benefited by merely mak- 
ing a change of climate, and one cannot change 
his moral nature by changing his residence. If 
he finds present circumstances unfavorable, let 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

him get a settled purpose to do right, and he 
will find the same circumstances helpful. If he 
has bad companions, they did not force them- 
selves upon him without his consent ; if he visits 
questionable resorts, he does not go except by 
his own free will ; if his habits are bad, they were 
not formed against his protest, and he certainly 
will not admit that he cannot change them 
whenever he wishes. 

The consciousness of a weak or cowardly 
act may torture a person for years. Some are 
by nature resolute and fearless, but courage 
is not wholly an inborn quality. It is gained 
from experience in the presence of opposition 
or of danger. Many of the soldiers who fled 
in the panic at Bull Run became seasoned vet- 
erans before the war was over. It is only on 
the courage that has been often tested that one 
can absolutely rely. It takes a higher kind of 
courage to encounter opposition and ridicule 
in defence of the truth, than to meet an armed 
enemy. The excitement of the occasion, the 
co-operation of others, the fact that friends are 
in peril, the determination to avenge an insult 
or injury, either personal or to a cause which 
one has at heart, tend to make a man fearless 
in time of danger. But one who would risk his 
life to save a person from drowning may lack 
[97] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

the moral courage to stand alone in a company 
of his classmates in defence of what he knows 
to be right. It takes moral courage to do right 
when your daily associates do wrong, to live up 
to your convictions and follow the teachings 
of the home when others make light of them, 
to decline to assist the man of social promi- 
nence when he asks you to write his essay for 
him, to be a companion of a classmate who is 
unpopular, to keep expenses within your allow- 
ance and risk the loss of social standing. The 
weak man goes with the crowd and does what 
the others do, not bothering himself about 
moral questions. 

It calls for a high kind of courage to take a 
stand openly against evil in a college commun- 
ity, but a faint-hearted man can be strong in 
his opposition against either good or evil as 
long as his identity is concealed. College senti- 
ment ought not, and generally does not, sanc- 
tion anonymous publications attacking persons 
or things that the writers dislike, but there are 
some whom public sentiment does not reach. 
The individual attacked by an anonymous 
critic is not the only one who suffers. If the 
writer of the article escapes suspicion of being 
the author of it, he does so by casting that sus- 
picion upon other people — other members of 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

his class perhaps, or of his society, or of the col- 
lege. If there is ground for public criticism of 
individuals or of an institution, the criticism 
should be made in an open and manly way. A 
man with no courage can be very bold in mak- 
ing unjust charges in print, so long as no one 
else knows who makes them. An unsigned com- 
munication, if read at all, generally has less 
influence with the reader, because he does not 
know the author's motive in making it and sus- 
pects that it is unfair inasmuch as the writer 
lacked the courage to make his attack openly. 
Would it not be better if all communications 
in the college press about college affairs were 
given over the names of their authors.'^ If an 
article is worth printing, the writer ought to 
be glad to acknowledge the authorship. There 
will be no danger of too much freedom of the 
college press when the contributors assume the 
responsibility for what they write. 

"Honesty is the best policy"; but he who 
has no higher motive for square dealing has a 
false standard and may be dishonest whenever 
that becomes good policy, or whenever he is 
sure of escaping detection. Any man will 
speak the truth when he thinks it for his inter- 
est to do so ; an honest man is one who will tell 
the truth no matter what it may cost him. We 
[99] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

are often more anxious to appear honest than 
to be so. All wish to be thought honest. Let 
the heart be right and the conduct will not be 
blameworthy. We ought to build our lives 
like the ancient temples, for the Deity who sees 
everywhere and not alone or chiefly for the eye 
of man, who sees only the outside. He who 
pretends to be what he is not, is a hypocrite; 
so also is the man who will urge others to live 
up to the standard which he does not follow 
himself. The thoroughly true and sincere man 
is the one to win our affection and rule our 
lives. 

When a child has done wrong, his first 
thought is concealment and denial. If he is not 
corrected, he is likely to become habitually 
untruthful. It will be fortunate for him if he 
is taught early that it is wrong to cheat and lie ; 
later he will learn by his own experience also 
that it does not pay in the end to do either. 
There is no place for a liar among men of any 
race or class ; confidence is everywhere withheld 
from one who has been proved to be a cheat. I 
remember a young man who lost the honor 
which it had been the ambition of his college 
life to gain, because he told a lie to save six 
cents. He deserved to lose the honor, for he 
showed himself unworthy of it ; that small act, 
[100] 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

which he thought shrewd, betrayed his real 
character. A college student whose conduct 
leaves room for doubt about his honesty has 
no social standing, and in any college a student 
who is known to steal from his fellows would 
be forced by his classmates to withdraw from 
the institution. 

It is hard to understand, therefore, how 
young men who have been selected to be trained 
in our educational institutions that they may 
become public servants and leaders, and whose 
standard of honor is so high when dealing with 
one another, can ever have tolerated the belief 
that dishonesty in dealing with the Faculty is 
not a serious offence. That this belief has been 
too generally held is shown, if in no other way, 
by the numerous efforts among the students 
themselves to establish a so-called honor system, 
under which a person guarantees to be honest 
when he has been put on his honor. Any honor 
system is much to be preferred to habitual dis- 
honesty, but it is not creditable to student life 
if it does not recognize a higher motive. We 
must be truthful and honest because it would 
be wrong to be untruthful and dishonest. One 
objection to an honor system, as often advo- 
cated, is that it seems to be assumed that when 
the student has not been put on his honor, he 
[101] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

does not feel under obKgation to be honest. 
When you sign an agreement not to cheat in 
an examination if supervision by the Faculty 
is removed, is it not to be understood that you 
think you have a right to cheat, if you can 
without being found out, when a supervisor is 
present? A gentleman is always on his honor. 
For a gentleman there is only one standard of 
honesty, and that is perfect honesty, always 
and everywhere, even if men in general are dis- 
honest. What ground is there for the position 
sometimes taken, that a student is justified in 
cheating in his examinations, if he gets a 
chance, because he is watched by his instruc- 
tors? The purpose of supervision is not to 
detect and punish wrongdoing, but to guard 
against the temptation to do wrong. The col- 
lege student today is treated as a man, and is 
subject only to the kind of supervision which a 
man everywhere ought to welcome. It is not 
likely that he will ever again be where he will 
be watched so little. When I go to the polls to 
vote, the supervisor carefully checks my name 
on the list, because the State fears that if its 
citizens are not watched, some of them may vote 
more than once, and we know that there is 
ground for this fear. When I receive pay- 
ment for a bill, my debtor asks me to give him 
[102] 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

a receipt, lest I demand payment a second time. 
If I overdraw my deposit at the bank, the bank 
will not honor my check. If I go on a journey, 
the conductor will not take my word that I 
have paid my fare, but demands my ticket as 
evidence; and he himself is obliged to punch 
the ticket, not because the company suspect him 
of dishonesty (if they had this suspicion they 
would not employ him), but because they know 
that it is not wise to expose even the most 
honest man in their employ to the continual 
temptation to be dishonest without adequate 
safeguards to protect him. The United States 
Government will not forward to you a letter 
from your father until it has canceled the 
stamp, fearing that you or some one else will 
use the stamp again if it is not defaced. When 
a bank official is caught in stealing from the 
bank, did you ever know him to attempt to 
justify his crime on the ground that he was 
watched by the bank examiners.'^ The watch- 
fulness of the examiners is his protection. If 
he complains of them at all, it is because they 
did not watch him more. There are citizens, 
we know, who would be glad if supervision 
were removed; if there were no lists of voters 
at the elections; if the banks would cash their 
checks without regard to the amount of their 
[103] 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

deposits ; if they could ride on the train with- 
out being asked to show their tickets; if they 
could hold positions of trust with railways and 
with banks, and be left on their honor. The 
good citizen does not object to supervision; 
and why should he? When it is so easy for a 
man under great temptation to begin the ruin 
of his whole career by one false step, we ought 
all to be thankful for any safeguards that help 
us to keep from evil; and the evil, remember, 
is not in being caught, but in yielding to the 
temptation to be dishonest. 

Even if the majority of men the world over 
were unreliable (as they are not), that would 
be no reason why you and I should be. The 
country is looking for men who can be trusted ; 
men who will not lie for their own profit, who 
cannot be bribed to do what is wrong. It has 
been said that such men are rare, especially in 
public life. If that is so, there is the greater 
reason why the record of college men should 
be clean. It seems pretty certain that honest 
men in positions of trust will be less rare in the 
years to come. It is getting to be dangerous 
for men in official positions to be dishonest. 
Recent events have made it evident that the 
dishonest public servant is to be relegated to 
private life, or to prison, and that men of 
[104] 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

established character are to be put in high 
positions. But it is not true that men gener- 
ally are dishonest. The comparatively few 
who are so become conspicuous examples, and 
we sometimes hastily judge all by the excep- 
tions. If it were not for the well-nigh univer- 
sal confidence in the commercial honesty of 
mankind, modern business on its present scale 
would be impossible. 

Whatever may be said about the feeling in 
colleges many years ago, it is no longer true 
that a student can be untruthful in his deal- 
ings with college authorities without losing the 
esteem of those for whose good opinion he 
ought to care. I do not believe that it has 
ever been true that a man known to be dis- 
honest in college has had in after life the full 
confidence of his classmates, or that he would 
be put by them in places of financial responsi- 
bility. I have known college students thor- 
oughly in one institution for forty years, and 
the hundreds of them who are in high places 
today are the ones who, when in college, left 
no doubt as to where they stood on questions 
that involved truth and honor. 

In a short time, school and college days will 
be over, and you may be seeking a position. 
Then you will appreciate the value of a good 
[105 J 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

college record. If you are an applicant for 
any business situation which is worth having, 
the firm will not consider you till they know 
what you have done and what you have stood 
for in college. Most of all, they will want 
evidence regarding your character and habits. 
College affords a pretty sure test of a young 
man's character. It is a little world in itself, 
presenting in miniature the same ambitions, 
the same temptations, and the same disappoint- 
ments that beset us in the great world outside. 
He who enters here is wise if he puts himself 
in the way of influences that will help the 
development of a manly character. It is not 
unnatural for a young man in his strength, 
and with but limited knowledge of the ways of 
the world, to feel confident of his ability to 
stand firm against temptation. It is true, 
also, that the power to resist evil must be 
mainly in one's self, and that no external 
influences can develop very strong character 
in a weak man; but when a youth goes out 
from home and school to enjoy the larger 
liberty of the college, he needs all the support 
he can get from Faculty guidance, from the 
restraining influences of former associations, 
and from good companionship. VTo become 
indiff^erent to the messages of aff^ection and 
[106] 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

devotion that come from the fireside where one's 
childhood has been spent, or from the school 
which is second only to the home, and to follow 
after companions who will soon count as zeros 
because they are bold only in things that are 
evil, is one of the surest ways to lose everything 
in college that is worth having. \ 

If you are so fortunate as to have a father 
and mother living, let one who lost both father 
and mother when he was so young that he does 
not remember to have seen either of them, 
advise you to make it a first principle to keep 
always on terms of confidential relationship 
with them, and to do nothing which you would 
not gladly let them know. You will not 
always be able to go to them as you can now. 
For your own sake, as well as theirs, do not 
willingly cause them sorrow. Remember their 
solicitude and their prayers in your behalf, the 
sacrifices they have made for you and are still 
making, and their long-cherished plans to give 
you what you now enjoy. Their hearts are 
bound up in you, and nothing else will give 
them so great joy as to see you grow to full 
manhood, appreciative of what they have done 
for you and fulfilling their bright hopes. 
Your companionship with your father ought 
to be the most precious of your life. If he is 
[107] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

a college man, he will live over his college life 
again with you. By and by you will learn to 
appreciate him as you cannot possibly do till 
you yourself take up the tasks of a mature 
man and get some idea of what his burdens 
have been. 

With all the disregard and neglect of church 
attendance, there is more practical Chris- 
tianity in America today than there was a 
century ago. There is help for the poor, 
sympathy for the lonely and sorrowing, care 
for destitute and orphan children, hospitals 
for the sick, homes for the homeless and friend- 
less. In the early part of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, college students came mostly from reli- 
gious families, and yet less than one fourth 
of an entering class, on the average, had made 
a profession of religion; and while there was 
willing attendance on the numerous religious 
exercises, the college atmosphere was unfavor- 
able to personal religion. Now a large 
majority of each entering class are church 
members, and all have respect and admiration 
for a courageous, religious man. A good pro- 
portion of the class engage in some active 
form of religious and charitable work. Hatred, 
revenge and jealousy, that formerly were not 
uncommon, are more and more despised, and 
[108] 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

have been replaced by the spirit of love and 
helpfulness. 

Religion is essential for the development of 
a well-rounded man. Thought on the great 
themes which it presents helps to make one 
strong and broad-minded. It gives him the 
best motives for living, helps him to overcome 
his faults and to make the most of his life. 
There is nothing good in a man that religion 
does not help to make better. If it is of the 
right type, it will stimulate him to do all his 
work better; it ought to make him a better 
son, a better friend, a better student. It urges 
him to take care of his health, as well as his 
character. It calls upon him to do his daily 
tasks well, and does not require, and ought 
not to allow, him to neglect these even to 
engage in religious or charitable work. The 
college studies, if he is pursuing them from the 
proper motive, are the first Christian work 
given him to do. Religious work done by those 
who neglect their college studies is generally 
not done effectively. The sincerely religious 
man is "diligent in business,'' as well as "fer- 
vent in spirit." It is a great mistake to try 
to help others by lowering your standard of 
conduct so as to be companionable with them. 
I have seen that tried many times, but never 
[109] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

with success. Your influence over your fellows 
will depend upon the correctness and reason- 
ableness of your own life. You can be com- 
panionable with any classmate if you are 
manly and sincere. 

I do not see how any one can feel satisfied 
with a life in which religion has no part. The 
Christian rehgion exactly meets man's wants. 
It comes to him with the spirit of forgiveness 
and the love of a divine Father. It presents 
to him the opportunity to have a share in the 
world's regeneration, the greatest work in 
which man was ever engaged. What the world 
needs is that all men should follow the example 
of the Master, and work unselfishly for the 
common welfare. The world is moving in that 
direction, and there will be far more of the 
spirit of Christ on earth one hundred years 
hence than there is today. When you assume 
the duties of a man among men, and take 
positions of responsibility, where everything 
depends on your integrity and your power to 
resist evil influences, you will feel the need of 
the support which religion gives. How much 
more you will do in the world, and how much 
more satisfaction you will take in your work, 
if your motives are the highest! I would that 
every young man, while in his strength, might 
[110 J 



COURAGE AND HONOR 

know the joy that comes from working in har- 
mony with the Power that makes for righteous- 
ness. 



[Ill] 



VI 
AMONG CLASSMATES 



Nil ego contulerim iucundo sanus amico, — Horace, 

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince 
every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion 
of the attachment of friends, and that the most liberal 
professions of good-will are very far from being the 
surest marks of it. — George Washington, 

Friendship is an order of nobility. — Emerson, 

The mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the 
conversation of a well-chosen friend. — Addison, 

That best portion of a good man's life. 
His little nameless, unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love. 

— Wordsworth, 

A day for toil, an hour for sport, 
But for a friend is life too short. 

— Emerson, 

A man that hath friends must show himself friendly. 

— Proverbs, 

Gravis est culpa tacenda loqui. — Ovid. 

A moral, sensible, and well-bred man 
Will not affront me; and no other can. 

— Cowper, 



VI 

AMONG CLASSMATES 

Although you go to college primarily for 
the intellectual advantages which it offers, yet 
that part of your education which comes from 
the life of the community is not to be under- 
valued. Association with men from all sections 
of the country, and from foreign countries, 
will help you to get rid of narrowness and 
provincialism ; and the awkwardness and angu- 
larity which you may have had at the begin- 
ning will be gradually worn off by constant 
attrition. Some of the most helpful influences 
of the four years will come from your class- 
mates, with whom you live the daily life amid 
the old traditions. The college room, the 
campus, the athletic field, the dining hall, the 
chapel, the gymnasium, the college publica- 
tions, the religious and social organizations, 
the intercollegiate contests in athletics or 
debate, do as much for the development of 
some men as the instruction of the class-room. 
Without the intellectual side, the social life 
would lose its charm ; but when both are ration- 
[115] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

ally blended, they make an ideal college life, 
which is one of the choicest privileges to which 
a young man can aspire. 

In sizing up a classmate, the first question a 
college man asks is. How does he carry himself 
toward other men? Is he large-hearted, a man 
of generous impulses? If in his intercourse 
with his fellows he looks out for himself first, 
if he is ungenerous in his treatment of any who 
stand in the way of his advancement, if he is 
unwilling to sacrifice his own interests for the 
good of the whole, if he is ready even to injure 
another's chances for the sake of helping him- 
self ; if, in short, he uses other men solely for 
what he can get out of them, he will in the end 
be without influence and will have no real 
friends. College is not a congenial place for 
a man whose horizon is limited by his own 
selfish considerations. On the other hand, true 
nobility of soul will atone for many disagree- 
able personal qualities, and even for some 
deficiencies of character. Generous treatment 
of others and an unselfish disregard of one's 
own comfort will give any young man a warm 
place in the hearts of his classmates. 

A college student cannot long pass among 
his classmates for what he is not. On account 
of school or family prestige or other favorable 
[116] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

circumstances, he may have during the first 
months of Freshman year a special advantage 
over his fellows which he does not deserve ; but 
reputation thus gained is apt to be short- 
lived. Some of those who pose as big men in 
Freshman year look exceedingly small in 
Senior year, — if, indeed, they survive till that 
time. Before one finishes his college course, 
his classmates will know pretty accurately what 
sort of a man he is. It is possible for him to 
deceive the Faculty, and he may deceive his 
family, but he will not deceive his classmates. 
Nowhere does a man's inner life lie more open 
to his companions. If he is brave, generous, 
and honorable, his classmates will know it ; and 
if he is jealous or selfish or cowardly or impure, 
they will know that. In later years a man's 
classmates will remember him as he was in his 
Senior year, and will keep the estimate of him 
which they formed at that period. The proba- 
bility is that one's character will remain 
through life essentially what it is when he 
leaves college ; but if it does not, the reputa- 
tion with which he goes out will cling to him, 
and if he becomes afterwards better or worse, 
it will not be easy for his classmates to appre- 
ciate the change. 

Sometimes a youth on entering college fool- 
[117] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

ishly attempts to make himself popular. He 
begins by trying to associate with those that 
are popular or that he thinks likely to become 
so. Perhaps he pays a high price for a room 
in a house where it is expected that the popular 
men will live. He endeavors to imitate them, 
but, like most imitators, generally succeeds in 
reproducing only their weaknesses. He may 
aspire to athletic or other responsibilities in 
order to help his own social standing. What- 
ever he may gain with this end in view, he will 
not secure the object on which he has set his 
heart. Popularity, like happiness, is not to be 
found by seeking it directly. The pursuit of 
it is like following the end of the rainbow. 
The really popular man is the one who com- 
mands the admiration of his classmates for 
his character and for what he does for the 
college and for those whom it is in his power 
to help. The one who pursues any object for 
a selfish end, whether it be scholarship, social 
honors, or athletics, will not be highly esteemed. 
The way to become popular is to be worthy 
of popularity. If a student is unselfish in his 
treatment of others, kind and polite to all with- 
out regard to their social standing, has the 
courage to live up to his convictions, controls 
his temper, and is always truthful and honest, 
[118] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

he will have all the popularity in college that 
the most ambitious man could desire. 

He who wishes to be an agreeable companion, 
and to make friends among his classmates, 
must be gentlemanly, trustworthy, kindhearted, 
discreet, and considerate of other men's time. 

If a college student has not the feelings and 
manners of a gentleman, the deficiency is gen- 
erally ascribed to lack of proper training at 
home ; though this may not be true. By his 
boorish and arrogant ways, a youth often 
brings dishonor on his parents which they do 
not deserve. But if his manners are bad, he 
will have the credit among his classmates of 
doing as well as he knows how. True polite- 
ness springs from a generous heart, and is not 
characteristic of a selfish man, though such a 
man may understand and follow the rules of 
etiquette. To be on all occasions a gentleman 
requires self-control, patience, good-will, and 
a readiness to deny one's self for another's 
comfort. The true gentleman loves his neigh- 
bor as himself. He will not, therefore, try to 
get the better of his neighbor, but will be care- 
ful not to say or do that which will give him 
pain. He will not only show a deference to 
those above him, but will take especial pains 
to treat with courtesy those who are less fortu- 
[119] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

nate than himself, whether they be his class- 
mates or his servants. I have never forgotten 
how politely one of my classmates went to 
the assistance of a poor colored washerwoman 
who had slipped on the icy pavement and 
dropped her laundry basket. Because she was 
only a colored woman, most young men would 
have smiled and passed on. The man who 
treats with derision those who are condemned 
by unfavorable circumstances to a life of toil 
has no right to a place among gentlemen. 

Horace mentions among the characteristics 
of manhood the ability to keep to one's self 
secrets that ought not to be revealed. This 
should also include not only what has been told 
you in confidence, but everything that has 
come to your knowledge which it would harm 
some one else to have disclosed. Why is it that 
people are so fond of telling something new, 
especially that which discredits others and 
tends to detract from their reputation.^ If you 
praise a classmate to one of his acquaintances, 
you almost expect him to reply adversely and 
go on to give you the unfavorable side of the 
man, in the spirit of the old Greek who voted 
to ostracize Aristides because he could not 
bear to hear him always called "the Just." It 
is far from easy to find a man in whom you 
[120] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

can confide and feel sure that nothing will be 
disclosed. It seems to me that the obligation 
to keep what has been entrusted to you in con- 
fidence is so great that no possible considera- 
tion, not even that of pubHc utility, can be 
strong enough to justify you in being false to 
the trust. 

If you are inclined either to make or to 
listen to unfriendly criticism of other men, it 
will be well to remember three things: that he 
who talks against a classmate to you, will also 
talk against you to him; also, that those who 
are most severe in their denunciation of others 
are generally the ones whose own characters 
and lives will least bear inspection; and again, 
that a man is very likely to criticize others for 
the faults of which he himself is guilty. Be 
especially careful not to speak unkindly of 
those who have tried to injure you. College 
men respect and admire one who has such a 
fine sense of honor that he will not, by word or 
deed, injure another, though he is known to 
be his enemy. "Love your enemies" is the best 
rule everywhere, not only for their sake but 
for your own. Acts done for the purpose of 
injuring another's reputation harm chiefly the 
one who does them. Envy and jealousy belong 
to the meaner side of human nature, and are 
[121] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

among the sins that Christ especially con- 
demned. 

While you will abstain from saying things 
that hurt the feelings of others, you must 
expect now and then to have things said to 
you that will cause irritation. The most manly 
way to meet ill-natured remarks of ill-mannered 
men is by silence. To reply in kind or to show 
resentment by being yourself ungentlemanly is 
never wise. Sometimes a student who has 
received at the hands of the Faculty treatment 
which he considers unjust, gives expression to 
his injured feelings by refusing to recognize 
members of that body on the street, thus mak- 
ing a display of a side of his nature which it 
would be wiser for him to conceal. 

One should learn to profit by the unkind 
things said to him, and get something more 
from them than training in patience and self- 
control. If one has criticized me, though it 
be in the spirit of anger, it is pretty certain 
that there is something wrong about me which 
ought to be corrected. One may perhaps learn 
even from men who reveal what they know 
when under the influence of wine, and an angry 
man may speak truths, unpleasant though they 
be. When a man criticizes me severely in an 
outburst of anger, instead of trying to defend 
[123 J 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

myself either to him or to my own judgment, 
I ought rather to look into my own conduct 
and character to see whether there is not some 
just ground for his criticism. 

However much we may desire to help a class- 
mate, there are services which, for the most of 
us, it may not be wise to undertake. Expe- 
rience has shown that it is generally not safe 
to venture to tell a friend his faults, though 
this, when it is done in the spirit of kindness 
and is gratefully received, is the most helpful 
service we can render him. Now and then a 
man of rare tact has this gift. But generally 
when men tell us our faults, they are moved by 
jealousy or by anger, and not by love. We 
all have faults enough that we should be quick 
to correct if we could only see them as they 
appear to others; but most of us dislike to be 
told of them, seeming to prefer to cherish 
them and let them grow worse. 

Suus cuique attributus est error: 
sed non videmus manticce quod in tergo est, 

I should hesitate a long while, also, before 
attempting to correct a conceited or arbitrary 
man in his statements, although I knew for 
certain that they were wrong. It would only 
irritate him. Instead of being corrected, he 
[123] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

would stand his ground and vigorously defend 
himself, and the argument between us might 
easily lead to unpleasant personalities. 

One should not be obstinate in defending his 
opinions, except where a moral question is at 
issue, nor should he assume that everything 
must be false which he does not believe. He 
should avoid ostentation and be ambitious to 
know, but not to display his knowledge. He 
should not get the idea that the world, and all 
things in it, were made for him alone, or that 
all wisdom was born with him. As children 
perhaps we had this view, but when we became 
men we put away childish things. 

An Oriental student not long in America 
called one evening on a college family. As he 
was taking his leave, he was urged to call again 
"very soon." Assuming that all polite things 
said in American society were to be taken liter- 
ally, and not wishing to be remiss in social 
etiquette, he called again (probably after con- 
sulting his dictionary) in half an hour. We 
readily excuse him for his misunderstanding; 
we should probably do much worse in his 
country. But there is no excuse for your 
classmate who seems to have nothing to do but 
loaf in your room. One ought to be on friendly 
terms with all his classmates, and visit with 
[124] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

many of them in their rooms and in his own; 
but he who makes his calls too long or too 
frequent will soon become an unwelcome visitor. 
Though he may be received politely, he will be 
voted a bore. A business man may put up in 
his office, "This is my busy day," and keep it 
there every day in the year ; but a college man 
cannot, without rudeness, show such lack of 
cordiality to a classmate. However much it 
may go against the grain, when he comes to 
your room you have to treat him courteously. 
It would be ungentlemanly and unkind to do 
otherwise. When serious work must be done, 
there is always a refuge in the reference library, 
where conversation is forbidden. 

When I began my duties as a college 
instructor, I thought, as many young instruc- 
tors do, that it was my mission to bring about 
better relations between the Faculty and stu- 
dents, and urged the Freshmen to call upon 
me. On going to my room one day from the 
morning recitation, I found a Freshman wait- 
ing at the door. I was glad to spend a few 
minutes with him, and tried to make him feel 
that he was welcome, evidently with much 
success. He seemed to enjoy the visit, and I 
soon began to wonder how long it would last. 
The few minutes extended to half an hour, 
[125] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

then to an hour, and still on to two hours and 
more. Ten minutes before the noon recitation 
he rose to go, and said: "I see it is nearly 
twelve o'clock; I shall have to go now. Per- 
haps my call has seemed long, but the fact is, 
my room is more than a mile from college and 
I had no other place to stay between recita- 
tions." 

Man cannot live without friends. If he is 
not appreciated by his fellows, he will find 
friends among the animals, sometimes more 
faithful than those of his own race or family. 
To be worthy of friendship, we must show the 
friend-like qualities that we expect to find in 
others. An insincere man cannot have a true 
friend, because he cannot be a true friend him- 
self; nor the selfish man, because he wants 
friends simply for his own advantage. Jeal- 
ousy destroys friendship. If you are all the 
time apprehensive lest your friend slight you, 
and are moody at his fondness for others, your 
company will be unnecessary, and perhaps 
annoying. If you have a friend whom you 
prize, try to be worthy of him. Do not be 
discourteous, nor flippant, nor irreverent. He 
will value you less for such lack of good breed- 
ing. Do not argue with him in order to justify 
yourself; you may justify yourself to your 
[126] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

own satisfaction, but lose his esteem. Do not 
be curious about his private affairs ; if he wishes 
to tell you, he will do so. 

If the best definition of a friend is that given 
by a boy, as John C. Goddard has said, that 
"a friend is a fellow who knows all about you, 
and yet likes you," then college friendships 
should be best of all, for nowhere else can a 
fellow know more about you than in college. 
For this reason it is nowhere more important 
to choose one's associates cautiously. What 
you become in college will depend much upon 
your choice of companions at the very begin- 
ning. You cannot be closely attached to a 
friend without feeling his influence over you. 
You become fond of him, his manners, his 
method of doing things, and soon you uncon- 
sciously begin to be like him. If he is a worthy 
man, you grow better for the influence; if he 
is a bad man, you grow worse. A company of 
bad men will be more openly vile than any one 
of them would dare to be alone, and even one 
bad friend may easily work a young man's 
ruin. Others will judge us by the friendships 
we make. **IIe that walketh with wise men" 
may not in all cases be "wise," but people gen- 
erally will think him so; and however worthy 
in other respects he may be, no one will have 
[127] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

the full confidence of the college at large if his 
intimate companions are evil. 
C If one does not form life-long friendships, 
the fault will generally be his own. Almost any 
young man of good character and cleanly 
habits, who is sincere and not conceited or 
selfish, can find good and true friends among 
his classmates. If a man has not the capacity 
to make friends (and there are those who have 
not), he will have many lonely hours and will 
long for some one who can sympathize with 
him. Such a man must not be left to bear his 
burden of solitude alone. His lack of social 
qualities has perhaps come through no fault 
of his. It may be from an inherited shyness ; 
it may be the result of a childhood without 
playmates. Here is a chance to help a class- 
mate, and perhaps to save him. Become his 
friend, because he needs you. Cheer him by 
words of friendly appreciation. Draw out his 
good qualities. The helpfulness of one class- 
mate may do more to develop him than all the 
other influences of the college. ) 

The motive of the true friend is not per- 
sonal advantage or enjoyment, but helpful- 
ness to others. A man with this supreme 
motive considers every one his friend and 
"neighbor" whom it is in his power to help. 
[128] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

My heart has long been filled with gratitude 
to a friend whom I saw but once, whose name 
I never knew, and who did not know mine. 
More than fifty years ago, I entered one after- 
noon a crowded car in the Boston station, on 
my way to Worcester. A young man a few 
years my senior kindly shared his seat with 
me. After the manner of young men, we got 
into friendly conversation, chiefly about our- 
selves. My companion had recently grad- 
uated from a law school and was a clerk in a 
Boston office. I had been obliged, not long 
before, to give up my studies at Andover from 
lack of money, and had no hope of being able 
to return. My companion, who was a college 
man, at once took an interest in me, perhaps 
as in one who might some day become also a 
college man. He showed a great deal of sym- 
pathy and was anxious to help me. By way of 
encouragement, he told me something of his 
own history. That very morning I had been 
consulting a distinguished lawyer of Worcester 
about the validity of the will of a relative in 
whose small estate, if he had left no will, I 
should have had some slight interest. The 
distinguished lawyer had given me no en- 
couragement, but had assured me that the 
will was good and that none of the prop- 
[129] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

erty could come to me. I showed the copy 
of the will which I had with me to my 
newly made friend. He read it carefully, 
asked me a few questions, and told me that 
the document was worthless, giving his rea- 
sons. On his advice, I returned that after- 
noon to the office of the distinguished lawyer 
whom I had interviewed in the morning and 
told him why the will was not good. He con- 
sulted a law book, and at once agreed that the 
young graduate of the law school was right; 
but, though he admitted that he had told me 
what was false, and that I had told him the 
truth, he kept the fee which I had paid him in 
the morning. A mere statement of the case, 
as explained by the young law clerk, satisfied 
the one in charge of the property, himself a 
lawyer long in practice, and without further 
question I received my fourth of the small 
estate. The sum thus obtained enabled me to 
continue my preparation and enter college. 
This service, rendered me by a large-hearted 
young man whom I met by the merest chance, 
was apparently the means of changing the 
course of my life. I was helped not only by 
the material aid which came to me through 
his advice; I have never lost the influence of 
his kind and sympathetic words. As I have 
[130] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

not been able to repay him, I have tried to 
extend his service by helping other young men 
and thus passing on to them in some form the 
good that I received from my brief acquaint- 
ance with him. 

While one should be friendly toward all, he 
can have only a very few intimate friends. 
You will be fortunate if you find in all your 
class even one or two in whom you recognize 
true nobiUty of character, to whom you can 
entrust in confidence your thoughts and plans 
and know that their hearts are full of love and 
sympathy. Outside the home, there are per- 
haps no friendships that can compare in inti- 
macy and affection with those of college chums. 
The ties between them often become as close 
as those of brothers. A good roommate will 
be your companion in study and in recreation; 
he will rejoice in your successes, and encour- 
age and help you when in difficulty. Without 
such a roommate, you will never know what 
some of the most delightful experiences in col- 
lege life are. It is not good for a student to 
room alone ; he may have more time to himself 
and less interruption, but the loss will far out- 
weigh the gain. If he finds it hard to get on 
with a roommate, that shows that he needs 
one ; it is part of his education to learn to get 
[131] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

on with people. If he shuns the society of his 
classmates, he is likely to grow less compan- 
ionable and neighborly, and become so much 
shut up within himself as to develop peculiar- 
ities that will do him harm. It is well, also, 
to learn to study in the presence of others. 
Much of one's work in later years must be 
done wherever he can find a chance to write or 
think. If, when in college, he can study only 
in seclusion and silence, he may find himself 
later under a disability that it will take a long 
time to remove. I do not speak without expe- 
rience. During three years out of four I 
roomed alone, and have ever since regretted it. 
In my Freshman year, a Sophomore kindly 
shared his room with me. He helped me to 
start aright, and his sunny disposition was a 
blessing to us both. I needed the influence of 
such a roommate. Though we now live more 
than a thousand miles apart, we are still the 
best of friends. 

As locating officer for more than thirty 
years, I esteemed it one of the privileges of my 
position that on many occasions I was able to 
bring together at the beginning of Freshman 
year young men as roommates who found 
themselves agreeable companions, who kept 
together through the four college years, and 
[132] 



AMONG CLASSMATES 

have remained life-long friends. Some of the 
pleasantest associations of one's academical 
life are those which center in the college room, 
where joys have been enhanced and sorrows 
lightened because they have been shared by a 
congenial roommate. 



[133] 



vn 

PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 



Quam quisque norit artem in hac se exerceat. — Cicero. 

What ruins a man is throwing himself into a pro- 
fession that does not suit him. — Bacon. 

No man without absolute integrity ever ends his career 
as a great merchant. — Charles Stuart Smith, 

He who has a high ambition to spend himself in noble 
deeds, without thought of self, will have an ear to the 
church's call. — President George B, Stewart, 

Probably no other profession demands the complete 
absorption of one's whole life as does the medical pro- 
fession. To the earnest, aspiring man or woman, to 
whom the thought of service is an inspiration, no other 
profession has more to offer. — George F, Shears, 

The lawyers of the future will not be mere pleaders 
before juries. They will save their clients from need of 
judge and jury. — President Jordan, 

Congenial labor is the secret of happiness. 

— Arthur Christopher Benson, 

Blessed is he who has found his work. Let him ask no 
other blessedness. He has a work, a life purpose; he has 
found it and will follow it. — Carlyle, 

Let me live in a house by the side of the road 
And be a friend to man. 

— Sam Walter Foss, 



VII 
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

The year following my graduation from col- 
lege was spent in teaching at the Chickering 
Institute in Cincinnati. There was now before 
me a definite plan of life, in which my first 
obligation was the removal of my college debts. 
When, before the end of the year, I was able 
to write to Professor Thacher, who had greatly 
befriended me, that I owed no man anything, 
I felt a satisfaction to me before unknown. 
The end long hoped for had been gained, and 
the friends who had kindly assisted me had 
been repaid, as far as money could repay them. 
I had returned to the work that I loved and 
had followed for several years before entering 
college, and was free to continue my studies 
unencumbered. My college debts, which aver- 
aged nearly two hundred dollars each year, 
would have hindered me greatly in my subse- 
quent work if they had not been removed at 
once. 

I say to any student who has to pay his way, 
do not borrow if it can be avoided. A college 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

debt will impose a burden on you when you are 
in no condition to bear it. But if you must 
graduate in debt, the first thing to do is to get 
square with the past. Even if you must post- 
pone further study for a year or more to earn 
the money, the delay will be a less evil than the 
incubus of a debt when you leave the profes- 
sional school. Then is just the time when you 
will need a great deal more money than you 
can earn, and when you will have nothing what- 
ever with which to meet long-standing obliga- 
tions. Moreover, it is exceedingly discourag- 
ing to be forced to economize in order to pay 
for the necessary things of life, like food, cloth- 
ing, lodgings, which one had years ago but of 
which nothing now remains. If after repeated 
postponements you are able at length, by strict 
economy, to make settlement, you will feel like 
saying, as did one of my early companions 
when he paid his landlady a board bill long 
since due: "Take the money if you will, but it 
seems to me just like throwing it into the fire !" 
He who enters his profession with a debt 
which he is making no plans to repay does not 
give much promise of an honorable and useful 
life. If one graduates in debt, his first duty 
as a gentleman and a Christian is to pay what 
he owes. This duty should be discharged 
[138] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

before he establishes himself in a home of his 
own, and before he gives to charity. He has 
no right to use for luxury or to give away 
what really belongs to another. Among those 
who have enjoyed the advantages of our insti- 
tutions of learning, there are not a few who, 
when in great need, have been able to secure 
loans from private individuals — sometimes 
from classmates or members of the Faculty, 
sometimes from friends of the college — ^which 
they have never repaid, and seem to feel under 
no obligation to repay. Many of these do not 
even acknowledge the receipt of courteous 
letters of inquiry regarding their obligation. 
One readily forgives the unfortunate debtor 
who says frankly that he has nothing with 
which to make payment, but what can be said 
for him who treats with contempt the friend 
who has helped him when others would not.f* 
Other students in limited circumstances suffer 
greatly from the unsavory reputation of such 
delinquents. It would not be difficult to find 
persons who would loan money willingly to 
college students, without interest, if it were not 
for an impression created by so many bad 
debtors, that students who are anxious to 
borrow are often unwilling to pay back. 

There is a feeling on the part of a consider- 
[139] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

able number of students that they have a right 
to all the financial help, in the way of loans 
and scholarships, that they can get. This 
attitude, together with the lack of appreciation 
not infrequently shown, has led many to ques- 
tion the wisdom of granting pecuniary aid in 
any form. But among students of very limited 
means are some of the foremost scholars, the 
ablest writers, and the most promising young 
men in the colleges. Many of these could not 
continue their education without the aid thus 
furnished, and they are the ones whose services 
the church and the state can least of all afford 
to lose; but how to administer the funds so 
that only the deserving may be aided, is a prob- 
lem of much difficulty. The donors of scholar- 
ship funds have generally not provided for 
repayment of the money advanced to students, 
leaving that to the honor of those who receive 
it. But if you accept financial aid in any form, 
though you are under no obligation to treat it 
as a loan, you should have the purpose to return 
it to the college if you are ever able to do so 
without hardship, that it may be passed on to 
others. If you really appreciate the assist- 
ance, you will hardly be willing to receive it 
without planning to do at least as much to help 
some one else in similar circumstances. 
[140] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

As you approach the close of your college 
course, your thoughts will turn more and more 
toward the future with its opportunities and 
responsibilities. Among the questions that 
present themselves, the most important con- 
cerns the special line of service to which your 
life is to be devoted. Nothing need be said to 
convince you that this should not be decided 
without very careful deliberation. Your com- 
fort, happiness, and usefulness depend on the 
choice you make. Before selecting a profes- 
sion, you should be sure of three things: that 
it is the one for which you are best fitted ; that 
you will not find its duties disagreeable; that 
it offers the future which you desire. 

Many of the failures in life are due to the 
attempts of men to do work for which they are 
not qualified by nature or by education. There 
are men in business who would have done better 
in the professions, and a great many men enter 
the professions who would have done much 
better in some kind of business. Some have 
gone into business for themselves and lost all, 
because they lack the capacity to organize and 
direct, and can work to advantage only under 
the supervision of others. As a general rule, 
a man will not fail in any occupation which he 
understands if he is of trustworthy character 
[141] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

and has plenty of energy and persistence; but 
one cannot do his best if he misses his calling. 

You ought also to find out whether you are 
likely to be satisfied with a profession, before 
you choose it. After you enter it, you are 
expected to become absorbed in it, devoting 
your best energies day after day, and year 
after year, to mastering its problems. You 
will live in it. Will it be congenial.?^ Will this 
daily contact with it satisfy you? Will its 
methods satisfy you? Will you be contented 
to remain in it to the end, to make your repu- 
tation in it? 

Ask yourself also whether the occupation 
which you have in mind will offer you the future 
that you desire. Does it present to you a 
worthy career? If you propose to spend time 
in learning a business, an important question 
is. Will that kind of business continue to be done 
twenty years hence, or will it have to give place 
to something more modern? If you think of 
preparing yourself to teach a certain branch, 
you want to know whether that branch is one 
in which there is and will continue to be a 
demand for instructors. 

Nature has so plainly chosen some men for 
their work that they themselves hardly need 
to make a choice. Professor Newton told me 
[142] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

that from boyhood it was evident that his life 
was to be devoted to the study and teaching of 
mathematics, and that he never once thought 
of any other occupation. GifFord Pinchot 
came to college intending to become a forester, 
and began in the first term of Freshman year 
special study in preparation for his future 
career. A young man is fortunate if his native 
talents, the plans of his parents, and his own 
inclination combine to mark out his vocation 
for him beyond a doubt. But with the great 
majority of us, it is not so. Partly by expe- 
rience, and partly by the judgment of teachers 
and others interested in us, we have to dis- 
cover in what direction our natural qualifica- 
tions seem to point. With some, the chief 
question is not. What am I best fitted to do? but 
What opportunity does each profession offer 
me? For such as these, the decision is often 
based on the amount of the expected income. 
It may prove a great mistake to reject the 
calling for which one finds he is fitted, on 
account of the smallness of the income; the 
chief end of life is not to get a large salary. 
What one does for the world is of far greater 
consequence than what he receives from it. It 
has gratified me much to know that among the 
young men who have consulted me in recent 
[143] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

years about their work for life, a large part 
do not seem to be looking at the pecuniary 
rewards or the honors, so much as at the oppor- 
tunity to influence and help others. 

A young man spends several years in school, 
and several more in college, that he may pre- 
pare himself for the work to which he is to 
devote his life. If by the end of his second 
college year he is undecided as to what the 
nature of that work is to be, he ought to make 
a study of the different callings that will be 
open to him, that he may be in a condition to 
decide, before his college days are over, in 
which he is most likely to find a place that he 
can worthily fill. Many parents have sug- 
gested that there ought to be courses of lec- 
tures in colleges, from which this information 
can be gained. As long as there is no such 
opportunity, you will have to get the informa- 
tion in some other way, but you should not fail 
to get it. You must not drift aimlessly into a 
profession, or choose one because a relative or 
classmate has done so. What will be a wise 
choice for your friend may be most unwise for 
you. Have a plan about your life, and choose 
a profession after you know something about 
it, and because you really believe that you will 
like it and be useful in it. 
[144] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

One is at a great disadvantage who comes 
to the very end of his college course unde- 
termined as to what his future is to be; such 
indecision will cause him much unhappiness. 
He will very likely spend the next year, and 
perhaps several years, in doing little or noth- 
ing, or in work that will have no bearing on 
the occupation which he finally adopts, — ^if, 
indeed, he ever adopts any. The longer the 
choice is delayed, the harder generally it is to 
decide. Martial, in one of his epigrams, repre- 
sents Laurus as likely to reach the age when 
men ought to retire before he has made up his 
mind whether he will be a teacher of rhetoric 
or a lawyer. It would be well, as has been 
already suggested, if a college student could 
have some pretty clear idea about his profession 
by the end of Sophomore year. If he has spe- 
cial fitness for any calling, he can generally 
make the discovery by that time. An early 
decision will help in selecting courses for the 
last two years. While I do not believe it wise 
for most students to take up purely professional 
studies in college, I would have them choose for 
Junior and Senior years some academical 
courses that would be in the line of the work 
to be done after graduation. 

My advice to young men who are in great 
[145] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

doubt about their profession has been this. 
Select the kind of work which you think you 
are best quahfied by nature to do. Fit your- 
self for this as thoroughly as circumstances 
will allow, and follow the leadings of Provi- 
dence. It is probable that your life will be 
spent in the work which you have selected, but 
it may not be. Providence may call you else- 
where ; if so, you will find that the preparation 
which you have made has fitted you for the 
service to which you are called. There seems 
to be a plan about one's life which he has had 
no part in making, and which he does not 
understand till his work is nearly done. Then, 
looking back over the whole, he realizes that 
he has been guided to make choices that have 
combined to give his life a completeness which 
he did not anticipate. 

All useful work is honorable. At Rome, 
certain forms of business were not thought 
consistent with the dignity of a Roman citizen ; 
but in America, no useful occupation is degrad- 
ing to a true gentleman. The man who makes 
shoes, or builds houses, or sells merchandise, or 
raises corn, if he puts his best self into all that 
he does, is serving God and his fellow men just 
as truly as the man who preaches the gospel 
or who heals the sick, and he may be doing as 
[146] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

much, perhaps more, to help make the world 
better. He is doing an important part of the 
world's work. It is not what your business is, 
but what you put into it, that determines your 
influence over men. I have known business men 
whose methods were so honorable, and whose 
lives were so filled with the spirit of Chris- 
tianity, that they have influenced my life as 
deeply as any minister or teacher. 

Important as it is that we ultimately reach 
the work for which we are best fitted, yet the 
value of the choice depends on our motive in 
making it. The noblest calling pursued for 
unworthy ends is inferior to the humblest ser- 
vice done for a high purpose. To live to amass 
wealth for its own sake is selfish, but if the aim 
is to acquire a fortune that it may be used in 
the service of humanity, the purpose ennobles 
the work. The danger is that when you have 
gained your fortune, it will be harder for you 
to devote it to the service of humanity than 
you now think. The more a man has, the less 
in proportion is he disposed to give for the 
public good. 

Besides the regular professions, there are 

many pursuits open to college graduates who 

have special natural qualifications. Among 

them may be named civil, mechanical, electrical, 

[147] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

mining, and sanitary engineering; business in 
all its forms; forestry; agriculture; journal- 
ism; music; art; architecture; and advertising. 
For the most of these some training may be 
had in the undergraduate, and more in the 
graduate courses. 

The young man who plans to accomplish 
anything worth doing in any profession or any 
business ought to have good health, good men- 
tal equipment, and a strong moral purpose. 

The competition in every field of activity 
today is so keen that one who enters will need 
all the sustaining power which vigorous health 
can supply. All degrees of dissipation are 
hindrances, and excessive dissipation makes a 
successful career impossible. 

If you are not more than an average stu- 
dent, the kind and amount of mental effort 
which you are thus far showing in college will 
not enable you to get on to advantage in a 
professional school. When it comes to the 
actual work of your life, success will depend 
greatly on your ability to think clearly, and 
decide quickly and wisely. It is the man with 
a well-trained mind who brings things to pass. 

No man whose integrity is questioned can 
have any standing in business, and no man of 
impure character and low motives ought ever 
[148] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

to enter one of the learned professions. The 
profession will not want him when his character 
is known, as it soon will be. What right has 
a low-minded and unprincipled man to be a 
pleader in a court of justice, to have access to 
our homes as a family physician, to comfort 
those who mourn, or to teach the young? 

To the young man who wishes to put in his 
life where it will count the most possible for 
Christ and the world, the ministry will appeal 
beyond all other professions. Here his best 
years will be exclusively given up to the great 
work to which the energies of all good men 
ought to be devoted — the regeneration of man- 
kind. There is certainly no calling higher or 
more useful. No other work, when it is fin- 
ished, will be looked back upon with greater 
satisfaction. The preaching of the gospel has 
been the great human agency in the establish- 
ment of modern civilization, with its institu- 
tions of charity and reform. 

But men are not called upon to enter the 
ministry who have not, and are not willing to 
get, the necessary qualifications. The Chris- 
tian minister must be a man of God in heart 
and life, and should be to such a degree unsel- 
fish that in all his dealings with other men he 
will consider his own interests last of all. He 
[149] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

ought to be courteous, apt to teach, tactful, 
and discreet, "teUing the truth in love." He 
will need the sympathy of a loving heart when 
he is called to meet the penitent and the 
bereaved, and much patience to deal calmly 
with the ill-tempered, the fault-finding, and the 
conceited. While his position as a clergyman 
will place him on a level with the best men in 
his congregation, he must be willing also to 
treat as equals those among his people who 
have no social standing. He ought to be well 
educated. Men who could not pass an exam- 
ination for admission to a good medical or law 
school, or for a high school teacher's certificate, 
and some who have not even education enough 
to teach a district school, have felt called upon 
to preach, without waiting to get the training 
necessary to fit them for their work. Most of 
them, "having no root, withered away." If 
one is called to the ministry, he is not called to 
enter it without the mental and moral equip- 
ment which will enable him to be a leader. 

In choosing this profession, one should feel 
drawn to it on account of its spiritual charac- 
ter and its opportunities to help other men. 
A man without the personal qualifications 
which the sacred office demands may attain a 
reputation as a preacher, and be a good busi- 
[150] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

ness manager, but he cannot hope to do the 
work of the ministry as the Master wishes to 
have it done. It was once thought that every 
student who was especially interested in reli- 
gion ought to go into the ministry; but good 
men are wanted in all professions. Some of 
the best Christian work is being done by teach- 
ers, lawyers, physicians, and business men, who, 
amid the demands of their regular calling, find 
time and means to devote to services of charity 
and religion. Where would have been our 
churches, colleges, schools, hospitals, and mis- 
sions, if there had been none to give of their 
substance for humanity's sake.? 

The physician holds an office not less sacred 
than the ministry itself. He is responsible 
for the health and for the lives of those who 
trust themselves to his care. A mistake in 
judgment or a lack of attention may produce 
fatal results. He comes to the home in time 
of anxiety and sorrow, and his opportunities 
to help and bless by his skill and presence are 
not surpassed by those of any other profession. 
There is nothing selfish in the practice of a 
good physician. He answers willingly the call 
of the poor man who cannot recompense him, 
and when he discovers new remedies or new 
methods that seem to him better than the old, 
[151 J 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

he gives the information freely to his fellow 
practitioners. He does not live for himself; 
he, perhaps more than any other man, is a ser- 
vant of his fellow men, sacrificing his own time, 
his comfort, his health, and sometimes his life, 
in order to save them. In this he is a follower 
of the Great Physician, "who went about doing 
good,'' "healing all manner of disease, and all 
manner of sickness among the people." A posi- 
tion of such responsibility demands thorough 
medical training. Who can estimate what evils 
the human race has suffered at the hands of 
half-educated physicians, and of ignorant 
persons who have called themselves "doctors"! 
He who would become a physician should have 
skill and good judgment which will not fail 
him in a crisis; he should be a man of great 
discretion, with a high sense of honor, who can 
keep to himself things that ought not to be 
told; a man with a sympathetic nature and a 
cheerful disposition, who will bring by his 
presence sunshine and hope. 

It is important to lay in college a broad 
foundation for medical studies, — the broader 
the better, if you do not begin the professional 
training too late. It is well, also, to make your 
professional studies broad and inclusive, even 
though you expect in practice to follow a spe- 
[1521 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

cial line. To a few men of unusual ability and 
thorough scientific training there is given the 
great privilege of adding something to the 
world's stock of knowledge. The world owes 
more than can be estimated to the specialists 
who, for no reward beyond the joy of accom- 
plishment and the appreciation of their fellow 
workers, have, after years of patient investiga- 
tion, made discoveries that have lessened suffer- 
ing and lengthened life. To render a service 
that can thus bless mankind may well be the 
highest object of one's ambition. 

Teaching is also one of the most useful of 
the professions, and likewise one of the most 
poorly paid. If you are by nature fitted to 
teach, are willing to live the simple life and 
forego the opportunity to gain honors and 
wealth, you will not be likely to find any posi- 
tion where your influence will count for more. 
But teaching is the last calling to be selected 
on the ground of failure in other pursuits. 
Teachers not infrequently become dissatisfied 
with their calling. The remuneration is small, 
and the class-room duties become more and 
more monotonous and irksome. I advise any 
young man who proposes to devote his life to 
teaching to get a place in a school and serve 
as an instructor long enough to be sure that 
[153] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

he will enjoy the work, before taking several 
years of graduate study to prepare for teach- 
ing as a profession. 

Assuming mental equipment, the best teacher 
is one who has been born with the instinct for 
teaching and can maintain order by his pres- 
ence. No one ought to teach unless he is sym- 
pathetic, patient, and of unblemished charac- 
ter. He should have a love for boys, and be 
able to see something good even in the worst. 
To reach his pupils so as rightly to influence 
their lives and win their respect and affection, 
he has as great need of personal religion as has 
the minister of the gospel. A teacher should 
have a knowledge of human nature and be 
skillful in imparting information. He should 
be free from prejudice and from sarcasm. It 
hardly needs to be said that he should be an 
accurate scholar, and have a love of the truth 
for the truth's sake. To secure and hold a 
good position he must be master of the subject 
which he teaches. An instructorship in a school 
that prepares for college demands a year or 
more of graduate study, and the opportunity 
to teach in college is open only to one who, if 
he has not already a doctor's degree, has at 
least been thoroughly trained in his depart- 
ment of study in a graduate school. 
[154] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

A few years spent as an instructor in a good 
secondary school sometimes form an excellent 
preparation for administrative work in col- 
lege; but success as a schoolmaster or in the 
ministry is no longer considered a recommen- 
dation for a college professorship. Whatever 
one's ambition may be, it is unwise for him to 
begin a long course of preparation for college 
or university teaching unless the professors 
under whom he has specialized have discovered 
in him unusual capacity for training other 
men or special fitness for investigation. The 
position of master in a good school is as useful 
and honorable as a college professorship, and 
that of headmaster is generally more remuner- 
ative. He has a better opportunity to shape 
the lives of his pupils. The impressions of the 
school are retained when those of the college 
are forgotten. Much of the best educational 
work in the next half century will have to be 
done in the secondary schools. 

The law is a good profession for men of 
ability and character, but many are drawn 
into it who are unfit to assume its responsi- 
bilities, whose purposes are wholly selfish, and 
whose influence tends to lower it in the public 
estimation. It is not a good profession for a 
man who is easily discouraged by defeat, or 
[155] 



FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

for one who is ill-tempered or small-minded. 
It offers no inducement to an indolent man, or 
to one who wants long vacations. To become 
a good lawyer, one needs alertness, a capacity 
for clear and concise statement, common sense, 
good judgment, and a sincere desire to get at 
the truth. Honorable success in the law is 
gained only by incessant application, early and 
late, through a long period of years. 

In the large cities, and to a less degree in 
the smaller cities and towns, the business of 
the lawyer is quite different now from what it 
was when the fathers of this generation of col- 
lege men entered the profession. No large 
proportion of those who graduate in law at the 
present day will practice in the courts. The 
great industrial corporations, which are ab- 
sorbing the business of the country, employ as 
assistants numbers of men who have been 
trained in the law schools. Their aim is to 
avoid law suits whenever possible. In modern 
business, men with large capital or small want 
sound legal advice, but they shun the courts 
on account of the cost and vexation incident 
to litigation. Title companies and trust com- 
panies now do much business that was formerly 
done by lawyers. 

Many graduates in law seek positions in law 
[156] 



PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

offices, large or small, expecting that the prac- 
tical experience will do for them what hospital 
practice does for the young doctor. Some of 
these may become members of small firms; 
some, who have the necessary qualifications, 
may become specialists. A few of the ablest 
and best-trained will reach the high levels. 
But with the large numbers already in the pro- 
fession, many who now enter it will have to be 
satisfied with limited practice, or with service 
under oi^er men, or with some line of business 
for which their law studies have only in part 
prepared them. The young lawyer finds it 
hard to start out for himself in a great city. 
Only those who have a good degree of per- 
sonal magnetism, and who know how to make 
friends easily and to gain the confidence of 
other men, can become well enough known to 
get clients. Those without these gifts, though 
not lacking in intellectual ability or education, 
are very likely to remain in the service of law 
firms as salaried clerks all their lives. 

If you take up the practice of law, set your 
standard high and do not depart from it. 
Enter the profession with the purpose to 
become distinguished in it. It is a worthy 
ambition to become a great lawyer, but you 
will never attain this eminence if your practice 
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FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

is doubtful or if you choose law in order to 
become a politician. Promotion in the line of 
your profession you will of course desire; but 
honors outside, if they come at all, should come 
unsought. If they come in this way, it will be 
on account of your character as a man and 
your professional standing. You will never be 
worthy of such a call if you are governed by 
low motives or prefer the honors and emolu- 
ments of office to high rank in your profession. 

A young man who is fond of ma^ematical 
studies, is accurate and systematic, and has a 
good degree of mechanical ability, will be likely 
to succeed as an engineer. He will need sound 
health, based on a strong constitution and cor- 
rect living. He should also be urged on by 
an ambition that will make him eager for hard 
work. 

The student who has specialized in some 
branch of engineering, if he is a man of good 
habits and has done his college work well, may 
reasonably hope to find some place open to 
him on his graduation. Though his advance- 
ment for a time may be slow, it will not be 
uncertain, if he is found efficient in his calling 
and sticks to it. But it will amply repay one 
of marked ability to go on with graduate 
studies in his specialty, at least far enough to 
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PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

get the higher degree to which they lead. A 
thoroughly trained engineer will not have to 
wait for a call. The work of the engineer is so 
important to business interests and to the 
safety and comfort of man, that it cannot be 
entrusted to the untrained and incompetent. 

A large proportion of the engineers sent out 
by the universities enter the service of the rail- 
roads, where young men are appreciated and 
advanced according to their merit. Many of 
the railroad ofBcials were first employed by the 
roads as civil or mechanical engineers. Rail- 
roading must be learned by practical expe- 
rience, and the offices are filled almost wholly 
by men who have acquired a knowledge of the 
business in subordinate positions on the road. 
What railroad employee has a better chance 
of rapid promotion than the well-educated man 
with special mechanical or disciplinary talent 
who begins as an engineer? The field open in 
electrical engineering is particularly inviting, 
and is constantly and rapidly widening. Tech- 
nically trained men are wanted by the electric 
railways — in particular for the electrification 
of steam railways — by lighting and manufac- 
turing corporations, by the telegraph and tele- 
phone companies, — wherever, in fact, the elec- 
tric current is generated by any kind of motive 
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FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

power and transmitted over long distances to 
factories and cities for municipal, commercial, 
and domestic uses. The demand for thoroughly 
educated electrical engineers is so great that 
the best schools are able to place all capable 
graduates in desirable positions when their 
technical training and apprenticeship are 
completed. 

Something over one- third of the college 
graduates of the present day go into business. 
To most, the ambition to accumulate a fortune 
and to become industrial leaders, appeals 
strongly. Many desire the active life and the 
satisfaction that will come from seeing the 
visible results of their labors. Some hope to 
produce that which will add to human comfort. 
A large majority of college graduates are sons 
of fathers who did not go to college, and many 
of these choose business because their fathers 
were business men. The college graduate who 
goes into business must be willing to begin at 
the lowest round of the ladder, and not feel 
that his education exempts him from learning 
anything that the uneducated beginner has to 
learn. If he enters it with this spirit, he will 
find his college education of real advantage. 
In these days of great combinations, strong 
men with trained minds are in demand; but, 
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PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

whatever mental equipment one may have, he 
must not expect to rise to a very responsible 
position without much practical experience. 

Unless the young man who is looking toward 
a business career has very evident personal 
qualifications or the strong influence of family 
or friends, he may not have much opportunity 
for choice of place in which to begin. There 
are always openings for the few best men, and 
almost any firm would make a place for a young 
man of exceptionally high qualifications; but 
to the majority of us, average men, no such 
opportunities come. The most we can hope 
for is a fair chance to start. We must earn 
promotion before we get it. Take the best 
place which is offered you, and show by the 
excellence of your work what kind of man you 
are. Do not be afraid to do more than your 
share of the work. Do not object to anything 
asked of you on the ground that you are not 
paid to do that. What you want is to make 
yourself as useful as possible. When you are 
fitted for it, you will find advancement, either 
where you are or elsewhere. If you are ambi- 
tious for a first-class opportunity, do not let 
the amount of the salary influence your decis- 
ion. The best compensation during the first 
year is found in the opportunity to learn the 
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FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

business. As a rule, places that pay most at 
the start offer the least chance of advancement, 
and will be the least desirable from the stand- 
point of income twenty years hence. 

He who desires to become rich will not be 
likely to have his wish gratified in any of 
the learned professions. There are, indeed, 
examples of physicians, surgeons, and lawyers, 
who from their professional services receive a 
large income (that is, large for a doctor or a 
lawyer) ; the great majority, however, get no 
more than a comfortable living, and a large 
proportion hardly that. But there is a higher 
kind of satisfaction in being able to appreciate 
things that are above material good, and his 
life will be one of great joy who by and by 
finds himself well established in his calling, 
adapted to its duties, and steadily winning the 
respect and confidence of other men. 

Failure to do your part in the world's work 
may come, not only from attempting to take 
a position beyond the reach of your ability, 
but also from shrinking, through lack of self- 
confidence, from a position which you can and 
ought to accept. It requires a great deal of 
courage and faith to step into a place of much 
responsibility, but when such an opportunity 
comes, you ought to have the accumulated 
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PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

strength and wisdom of well-spent years which 
will enable you to meet the emergency. If you 
are in your proper field, and doing your work 
to the best of your ability, you need not hesi- 
tate long when such an opportunity is pre- 
sented. If it be rejected, it may not come to 
you again, and the call shows that in the judg- 
ment of others you can fill the place if you will. 
It is a very trite suggestion to young men 
that they are soon to take the places of those 
who are now doing the nation's work; but it is 
one which ought not to be forgotten, certainly 
not by college men, who are lifelong debtors to 
institutions of learning, either maintained at 
public expense or endowed by gifts of former 
generations. They have been selected and are 
being trained for this very purpose, that they 
may take the places of the strong men of today. 
Unless they prove incompetent, they are to be 
the leaders of the next generation. They will 
be to a great extent responsible for the quality 
of men in the professions, for the methods of 
business, for the standard of morality in public 
and private life, and for the position which we, 
as a Christian nation, hold among the nations 
of the earth. To take up and carry forward 
the work being done by the men of this genera- 
tion will be no light task, but the opportunity 
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FROM SCHOOL THROUGH COLLEGE 

appeals to all earnest young men. Perhaps no 
one ever does all that he hopes to do. Life is 
short, and strength may fail ; but when a young 
man of ability, who is willing to do hard work, 
sets out with his whole heart to attain a definite 
end, he is reasonably sure to accomplish enough 
to make the effort worth the while. 

A college graduate cannot live unknown. 
The college, the class, the town in which he was 
born, the community in which he lives, will 
follow his career with friendly interest. Sooner 
or later, in the class history and obituary 
notices, if nowhere else, the important facts of 
his life will be written out, to stand as his 
record for future generations. This public 
recognition is a call to a life of activity and 
achievement. 

Be loyal to your college. Remember that 
when you graduate you go out as its represent- 
ative. You cannot avoid this responsibility. 
In enrolling your name on its list of alumni, it 
accepts you as one of its sons, and men will 
judge of it by what they know and think of 
you. It is true that men generally will be more 
apt to notice the evil than the good. If your 
life is a bad one, they will point to you as the 
kind of man that your institution turns out. 
You have it now in your power to repay the 
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PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE 

college to some extent for what it has done for 
you. For this end it is not necessary to do 
some great thing that the world applauds. If 
you are a good man and a good citizen, capable 
and honorable in your calling, and upright in 
your life, with an intelligent and self-sacrificing 
interest in the pubhc welfare, ready to do your 
part toward making the government of your 
city and state clean and worthy of respect, you 
will honor your college and will render to your 
fellow men the service for which you came to 
college to prepare. 



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OCT 4 1811 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
OCT 12 '-"I 



